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THE 


NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE 

OR 

GHOSTS  AND  GHOST-SEERS 


BY 

CATHERINE  CROWE 

AUTHORESS  OF  "  SUSAN  HOPLEY,"   "  LILLY  DAWSON,"  "  ARISTOrEMCS, ' '  ST" 


"  Thou  com'st  in  such  a  questionable  shape, 
That  I  will  speak  to  thee." 


NEW  YORK. 
W.  J.  WIDDLETON,  PUBLISHER. 

MDCCCLXVLTI. 


PREFACE. 


In  my  late  novel  of  "  Lilly  Dawson,'*  I  announced  my  inten- 
tion of  publishing  a  work  to  be  called  "  The  Night-Side  of  Na- 
ture ;"  this  is  it. 

The  term  "  Night-Side  of  Nature"  I  borrow  from  the  Ger- 
mans, who  derive  it  from  the  astronomers,  the  latter  denomina- 
ting that  side  of  a  planet  which  is  turned  from  the  sun,  its  night- 
side.  "We  are  in  this  condition  for  a  certain  number  of  hours 
out  of  every  twenty-four  ;  and  as,  during  this  interval,  external 
objects  loom  upon  us  but  strangely  and  imperfectly,  the  Ger- 
mans araw  a  parallel  between  these  vague  and  misty  percep- 
tions, and  the  similar  obscure  and  uncertain  glimpses  we  get  of 
that  veiled  department  of  nature,  of  which,  while  comprising 
as  it  does,  the  solution  of  questions  concerning  us  more  nearly 
than  any  other,  we  are  yet  in  a  state  of  entire  and  wilful  igno- 
rance. For  science,  at  least  science  in  this  country,  has  put  it 
aside  as  beneath  her  notice,  because  new  facts  that  do  not  fit  into 
old  theories  are  troublesome,  and  not  to  be  countenanced. 

We  are  encompassed  on  all  sides  by  wonders,  and  we  can 
scarcely  set  our  foot  upon  the  ground,  without  trampling  upon 
some  marvellous  production  that  our  whole  life  and  all  our  fac- 
ulties would  not  suffice  to  comprehend.  Familiarity,  however, 
renders  us  insensible  to  the  ordinary  works  of  nature ;  we  are 
apt  to  forget  the  miracles  they  comprise,  and  even,  sometimes, 


4 


PREFACE. 


mistaking  words  for  conceptions,  commit  the  error  of  thinking 
we  understand  their  mystery.  But  there  is  one  class  of  these 
wonders  with  which,  from  their  comparatively  rare  occurrence, 
we  do  not  become  familiar  ;  and  these,  according  to  the  char- 
acter of  the  mind  to  which  they  are  presented,  are  frequently 
either  denied  as  ridiculous  and  impossible,  or  received  as  evi- 
dences of  supernatural  interference  —  interruptions  of  those 
general  laws  by  which  God  governs  the  universe ;  which  latter 
mistake  arises  from  our  only  seeing  these  facts  without  the 
links  that  connect  them  with  the  rest  of  nature,  just  as  in  the 
faint  light  of  a  starlit  night  we  might  distinguish  the  tall  mount- 
ains that  lift  their  crests  high  into  the  sky,  though  we  could  not 
discern  the  low  chain  of  hills  that  united  them  with  each  other. 

There  are  two  or  three  bo'oks  by  German  authors,  entitled 
•  The  Night-Side,"  or  "  The  Night-Dominion  of  Nature," 
which  are  on  subjects,  more  or  less  analogous  to  mine.  Hein- 
rick  Schubert's  is  the  most  celebrated  among  them  ;  it  is  a  sort 
of  cosmogony  of  the  world,  written  in  a  spirit  of  philosophical 
mysticism  —  too  much  so  for  English  readers  in  general. 

In  undertaking  to  write  a  book  on  these  subjects  myself,  I 
wholly  disclaim  the  pretension  of  teaching  or  of  enforcing  opin- 
ions. My  object  is  to  suggest  inquiry  and  stimulate  observa- 
tion, in  order  that  we  may  endeavor,  if  possible,  to  discover 
something  regarding  our  psychical  nature,  as  it  exists  here  in 
the  flesh  ;  and  as  it  is  to  exist  hereafter,  out  of  it. 

If  I  could  only  induce  a  few  capable  persons,  instead  of 
laughing  at  these  things,  to  look  at  them,  my  object  would  be 
attained,  and  I  should  consider  my  time  well  spent. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I. — Introduction   7 

II.— The  Dwellers  in  the  Temple   19 

III.  — Waking  and  Sleeping,  and  how  the  Dweller  in  the 

Temple  sometimes  looks  abroad  _   29 

IV.  — Allegorical  Dreams,  Presentiments,  &c   48 

V. — Warnings   66 

VI. — Double  Dreaming  and  Trance,  Wraiths,  &c   96 

VII.— Wraiths   130 

VIII. — Doppelgangers,  or  Doubles    149 

IX. — Apparitions.^.   171 

X. — The  Future  that  awaits  us   204 

XI.— -The  Power  of  Will   238 

XII.— Troubled  Spirits    252 

XIII.  — Haunted  Houses   273 

XIV.  — Spectral  Lights,  and  Apparitions  attached  to  Certain 

Families  319 

XV. — Apparitions  seeking  the  Prayers  of  the  Living  345 

XVI. — The  Poltergeist  of  the  Germans,  and  Possession  376 

XVII. — Miscellaneous  Phenomena  411 

XVIII.— Conclusion  434 


THE 


NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTION. 

"Know  ye  not  that  ye  are  the  Temple  of  God,  and  that  the  Spirit  of  God 
dwelleth  in  you?" — 1  Corinthians,  iii.  16. 

Most  persons  are  aware  that  the  Greeks  ano^Romans  enter- 
tained certain  notions  regarding  the  state  of  the  soul,  or  the 
immortal  part  of  man,  after  the  death  of  the  body,  which  have 
been  generally  held  to  be  purely  mythological.  Many  of  them 
doubtless  are  so,  and  of  these  I  am  not  about  to  treat;  but 
among  their  conceptions,  there  are  some  which,  as  they  coin- 
cide with  the  opinions  of  many  of  the  most  enlightened  persons 
of  the  present  age,  it  may  be  desirable  to  consider  more  closely. 
I  allude  here  particularly  to  their  belief  in  the  tripartite  king- 
dom of  the  dead.  According  to  this  system,  there  were  the 
Elysian  fields,  a  region  in  which  a  certain  sort  of  happiness 
was  enjoyed ;  and  Tartarus,  the  place  of  punishment  for  the 
wicked ;  each  of  which  was,  comparatively,  but  thinly  inhab- 
ited. But  there  was  also  a  mid-region,  peopled  with  innumer- 
able hosts  of  wandering  and  mournful  spirits,  who,  although 
undergoing  no  torments,  are  represented  as  incessantly  bewail- 
ing their  condition,  pining  for  the  life  they  once  enjoyed  in  the 
body,  longing  after  the  things  of  the  earth,  and  occupying  them- 
selves with  the  same  pursuits  and  objects  as  had  formerly  con- 


8 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


stituted  their  business  or  their  pleasure.  Old  habits  are  still 
dear  to  them,  and  they  can  not  snap  the  link  that  binds  them  to 
the  earth. 

Now,  although  we  can  not  believe  in  the  existen.ce  of  Charon, 
the  three-headed  dog,  or  Alecto,  the  serpent-haired  fury,  it  may 
be  worth  while  to  consider  whether  the  persuasion  of  the  an- 
cients with  regard  to  that  which  concerns  us  all  so  nearly — 
namely,  the  destiny  that  awaits  us  when  we  have  shaken  off 
this'  mortal  coil  —  may  not  have  some  foundation  in  truth: 
whether  it  might  not  be  a  remnant  of  a  tradition  transmitted 
from  the  earliest  inhabitants  of  the  earth,  wrested  by  observa- 
tion from  nature,  if  not  communicated  from  a  higher  source : 
and  also  whethe^  circumstances  of  constant  recurrence  in  all 
ages  and  in  all  nations,  frequently  observed  and  recorded  by 
persons  utterly  ignorant  of  classical  lore,  and  unacquainted, 
indeed,  with  the  dogmas  of  any  creed  but  their  own,  do  not,  as 
well  as  various  passages  in  the  Scriptures,  afford  a  striking 
confirmation  of  this  theory  of  a  future  life ;  while  it,  on  the 
other  hand,  offef  s  a  natural  and  convenient  explanation  of  their 
mystery.  9 

To  minds  which  can  admit  nothing  but  what  can  be  explained 
and  demonstrated,  an  investigation  of  this  sort  must  appear 
perfectly  idle  :  for  while,  on  the  one  hand,  the  most  acute  intel- 
lect or  the  most  powerful  logic  can  throw  little  light  on  the 
subject,  it  is,  at  the  same  time  —  though  I  have  a  confident 
hope  that  this  will  not  always  be  the  case  —  equally  irreducible 
within  the  present  bounds  of  science ;  meanwhile,  experience, 
observation,  and  intuition,  must  be  our  principal  if  not  our  only 
guide's.  Because,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  credulity  outran 
reason  and  discretion  ;  the  eighteenth  century,  by  a  natural  re- 
action, threw  itself  into  an  opposite  extreme.  Whoever  closely 
observes  the  signs  of  the  times,  will  be  aware  that  another 
change  is  approaching.  The  contemptuous  skepticism  of  tho 
last  age  is  yielding  to  a  more  humble  spirit  of  inquiry ;  and 
there  is  a  large  class  of  persons  among  the  most  enlightened  of 
the  present,  who  are  beginning  to  believe  that  much  which  they 
had  been  taught  to  reject  as  fable,  has  been,  in  reality,  ill-under- 


INTRODUCTION. 


9 


stood  truth.  Somewhat  of  the  mystery  of  our  own  being,  and 
of  the  mysteries  that  compass  us  about,  are  beginning  to  loom 
upon  us  —  as  yet,  it  is  true,  but  obscurely  ;  and,  in  the  endeavor 
to  fo|low  ouj;  the  clew  they  otfer,  we  have  but  a  feeble  light  to 
guide  us.  We  must  grope  our  way  through  the  dim  path 
before  us,  ever  in  danger  of  being  led  into  error,  while  we  mny 
confidently  reckon  on  being  pursued  by  the  shafts  of  ridicule  — 
that  weapon  so  easy  to  wield,  so  potent  to  the  weak,  so  weak 
to  the  wise — which  has  delayed  the  births  of  so  many  truths, 
but  never  stifled  one.  The  pharisaical  skepticism  which  denies 
without  investigation,  is  quite  as  perilous,  and  much  more  con- 
temptible, than  the  blind  credulity  which  accepts  all  that  it  is 
taught  without  inquiry ;  it  is,  indeed,  but  another  form  of  igno- 
rance assuming  to  be  knowledge.  And  by  investigation,  I  do 
not  mean  the  hasty,  captious,  angry  notice  of  an  unwelcome 
fact,  that  too  frequently  claims  the  right  of  pronouncing  on  a 
question  ;  but  the  slow,  modest,  pains-taking  examination,  that 
is  content  to  wait  upon  Nature,  and  humbly  follow  out  her  dis- 
closures, however  opposed  to  preconceived  theories  or  morti- 
fying to  human  pride.  If  scientific  men  could  but  comprehend 
how  they  discredit  the  science  they  really  profess,  by  their 
despotic  arrogance  and  exclusive  skepticism,  they  would  surely, 
for  the  sake  of  that  very  science  they  love,  affect  more  liberality 
and  candor.  This  reflection,  however,  naturally  suggests  an- 
other, namely,  do  they  really  love  science,  or  is  it  not  too  fre- 
quently with  them  but  the  means  to  an  end  ?  Were  the  love 
of  science  genuine,  I  suspect  it  would  produce  very  different 
fruits  to  that  which  we  see  borne  by  the  tree  of  knowledge,  as 
it  flourishes  at  present ;  and  this  suspicion  is  exceedingly 
strengthened  by  the  recollection  that,  among  the  numerous  stu- 
dents and  professors  of  science  I  have  at  different  times  encoun- 
tered, the  real  worshippers  and  genuine  lovers  of  it,  for  its  own 
sake,  have  all  been  men  of  the  most  single,  candid,  unpreju- 
diced, and  inquiring  minds,  willing  to  listen  to  all  new  sugges- 
tions, and  investigate  all  new  facts ;  not  bold  and  self-sufficient, 
but  humble  and  reverent  suitors,  aware  of  their  own  ignorance 
and  unworthiness,  and  that  they  are  yet  but  in  the  primer  of 

1* 


10  THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 

Nature's  works,  they  do  not  permit  themselves  to  pronounce 
upon  her  disclosures,  or  set  limits  to  her  decrees.  They  are 
content  to  admit  that  things  new  and  unsuspected  may  yet  l>e 
true ;  that  their  own  knowledge  of  facts  being  extremely  cir- 
cumscribed, the  systems  attempted  to  b*e  established  on  such 
uncertain  data,  must  needs  be  very  imperfect,  and  frequently 
altogether  erroneous ;  and  that  it  is  therefore  their  duty,  as  it 
ought  to  be  their  pleasure,  to  welcome  as  a  stranger  every 
gleam  of  light  that  appears  in  the  horizon,  let  it  loom  from 
whatever  quarter  it  may. 

But,  alas !  poor  Science  has  few  such  lovers !  Les  beaux 
y  eux  de  sa  cassette,  I  fear,  are  much  more  frequently  the 
objects  of  attraction  than  her  own  fair  face. 

The  belief  in  a  God,  and  in  the  immortality  of  what  we  call 
the  soul,  is  common  to  all  nations  j  but  our  own  intellect  does 
not  enable  us  to  form  any  conception  of  either  one  or  the  other. 
All  the  information  we, have  on  these  subjects  is  comprised  in 
such  hints  as  the  Scripture  here  and  there  give  us :  whatever 
other  conclusions  we  draw,  must  be  the  result  of  observation 
and  experience.  Unless  founded  upon  these,  the  opinion  of  the 
most  learned  theologian  or  the  most  profound  student  of  sci- 
ence that  ever  lived,  is  worth  no  more  than  that  of  any  other 
person.  They  know  nothing  whatever  about  these  mysteries ; 
and  all  a  'priori  reasoning  on  them  is  utterly  valueless.  The 
only  way,  therefore,  of  attaining  any  glimpses  of  the  truth  in 
an  inquiry  of  this  nature,  where  our  intellect  can  serve  us  so 
little,  is  to  enter  on  it  with  the  conviction  that, .knowing  noth- 
ing, we  are  not  entitled  to  reject  any  evidence  that  may  be 
offered  to  us,  till  it  has  been  thoroughly  sifted,  and  proved  to 
be  fallacious..  That  the  facts  presented  to  our  notice  appear 
to  us  absurd,  and  altogether  inconsistent  with  the  notions  our 
intellects  would  have  enabled  us  to  form,  should  have  no  weight 
whatever  in  the  investigation.  Our  intellects  are  no  measure 
of  God  Almighty's  designs ;  and,  I  must  say,  that  I  do  think 
one  of  the  most  irreverent,  dangerous,  and  sinful  things  man  or 
woman  can  be  guilty  of,  is  to  reject  with  scorn  and  laughter 
any  intimation  which,  however  strangely  it  may  strike  upon 


INTRODUCTION. 


11 


our  minds,  and  however  adverse  it  may  be  to  our  opinions,  may 
possibly  be  showing  us  the  way  to  one  of  God's  truths.  Not 
knowing  all  the  conditions,  and  wanting  so  many  links  of  the 
chain,  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  pronounce  on  what  is  probable 
and  consistent,  and  what  is  not ;  and,  this  being  the  case,  I 
think  the  time  is  ripe  for  drawing  attention  to  certain  phenom- 
ena, which,  under  whatever  aspect  we  may  consider  them,  are, 
beyond  doubt,  exceedingly  interesting  and  curious ;  while,  if 
the  view  many  persons  are  disposed  to  take  of  them  be  the 
correct  one,  they  are  much  more  than  this.  I  wish,  also,  to 
make  the  English  public  acquainted  with  the  ideas  entertained 
on  these  subjects  by  a  large  proportion  of  Germap  minds  oFthe 
highest  order.  It  is  a  distinctive  characteristic  of  the  thinkers 
of  that  country,  that,  in  the  first  place,  they  do  think  indepen- 
dently and  courageously ;  and,  in  the  second,  that  they  never 
shrink  from  promulgating  the  opinions  they  have  been  led  to 
form,  however  new,  strange,  heterodox,  or  even  absurd,  they 
may  appear  to  others.  They  do  not  succumb,  as  people  do  in 
this  country,  to  the  fear  of  ridicule ;  nor  are  they  in  danger  of 
the  odium  that  here  pursues  those  who  deviate  from  established 
notions ;  and  the  consequence  is,  that,  though  many  fallacious 
theories  and  untenable  propositions  may  be  advanced,  a  great 
deal  of  new  truth  is  struck  out  from  the  collision ;  and  in  the 
result,  as  must  always  be  the  case,  what  is  true  lives  and  is 
established,  and  what  is  false  dies  and  is  forgotten.  But  here, 
in  Britain,  our  critics  and  colleges  are  in  such  haste  to  strangle 
and  put  down  every  new  discovery  that  does  not  emanate  from 
themselves,  or  which  is  not  a  fulfilling  of  the  ideas  of  the  day, 
but  which,  being  somewhat  opposed  to  them,  promises  to  be 
troublesome  from  requiring  new  thought  to  render  it  intelli- 
gible, that  one  might  be  induced  to  suppose  them  divested  of 
all  confidence  in  this  inviolable  law ;  while  the  more  important 
and  the  higher  the  results  involved  may  be,  the  more  angry 
they  are  with  those  who  advocate  them.  They  do  not  quarrel 
with  a  new  metal  or  a  new  plant,  and  even  a  ne,w  comet  or  a 
new  island  stands  a  fair  chance  of  being  well  received ;  the 
introduction  of  a  planet  appears,  from  late  events,  to  be  more 


12 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


difficult ;  while  phrenology  and  mesmerism  testify  that  any  dis- 
covery tending  to  throw  light  on  what  most  deeply  concerns 
us,  namely,  our  own  being,  must  be  prepared  to  encounter  a 
storm  of  angry  persecution.  And  one  of  the  evils  of  this  hasty 
and  precipitate  opposition  is,  that  the  passions  and  interests  of 
the  opposers  become  involved  in  the  dispute  :  instead  of  inves- 
tigators, they  become  partisans ;  having  declared  against  it  in 
the  outset,  it  is  important  to  their  petty  interests  that  the  thing 
shall  not  be  true  ;  and  they  determine  that  it  shall  no^  if  they 
can  help  it.  Hence,  these  hasty,  angry  investigations  of  new 
facts,  and  the  triumph  with  which  failures  are  recorded  ;  and 
hence  the  wilful  overlooking  of  the  axiom  that  a  thousand  neg- 
atives can  not  overthrow  the  evidence  of  one  affirmative  experi- 
ment. I  always  distrust  those  who  have  declared  themselves 
strongly  in  the  beginning  of  a  controversy.  Opinions  which, 
however  rashly  avowed,  may  have  been  honest  at  first,  may 
have  been  changed  for  many  a  long  day  before  they  are 
retracted.  In  the  meantime,  the  march  of  truth  is  obstructed, 
and  its  triumph  is  delayed  ;  timid  minds  are  alarmed ;  those 
who  dare  not  or  can  not  think  for  themselves,  are  subdued ; 
there  is  much  needless  suffering  incurred,  and  much  good  lost ; 
but  the  truth  goes  quietly  on  its  way,  and  reaches  the  goal 
at  last. 

With  respect  to  the  subjects  I  am  here  going  to  treat  of,  it  is 
not  simply  the  result  of  my  own  reflections  and  convictions  that 
I  am  about  to  offer.  On  the  contrary,  I  intend  to  fortify  my 
position  by  the  opinions  of  many  other  writers ;  the  chief  of 
whom  will,  for  the  reasons  above  given,  namely,  that  it  is  they 
who  have  principally  attended  to  the  question,  be  Germans.  I 
am  fully  aware  that  in  this  country  a  very  considerable  number 
of  persons  lean  to  some  of  these  opinions,  and  I  think  I  might 
venture  to  assert  that  I  have  the  majority  on  my  side,  as  far  as 
regards  ghosts — for  it  is  beyond  a  doubt  that  many  more  are 
disposed  to  believe  than  to  confess  —  and  those  who  do  con- 
fess, are  not  few.  The  deep  interest  with  which  any  narration 
of  spiritual  appearances  bearing  the  stamp,  or  apparent  stamp, 
of  authenticity  is  listened  to  in  every  society,  is  one  proof  that, 


intro'duction. 


13 


though  the  fear  of  ridicule  may  suppress,  it  can  not  extinguish 
that  intuitive  persuasion,  of  which- almost  every  one  is  more  or 
less  conscious. 

I  avow,  that  in  writing  this  book,  I  have  a  higher  aim  than 
merely  to  afford  amusement.  I  wish  to  engage  the  earnest  at- 
tention of  my  readers  j  because  I  am  satisfied  that  the  opinions 
I  am  about  to  advocate,  seriously  entertained,  would  produce 
very  beneficial  results.  We  are  all  educated  in  the  belief  of  a 
future  state,  but  how  vague  and  ineffective  this  belief  is  with 
the  majority  of  persons,  we  too  well  know ;  for  although,  as  I 
have  said  above,  the  number  of  those  who  are  what  is  called 
believers  in  ghosts  and  similar  phenomena  is  very  large,  it  is 
a  belief  that  they  allow  to  sit  extremely  lightly  on  their 
minds.  Although  they  feel  that  the  evidence  from  within  and 
from  without  is  too  strong  to  be  altogether  set  aside,  they  have 
never  permitted  themselves  to  weigh  the  significance  of  the 
facts.  They  are  afraid  of  that  bugbear,  Superstition  —  a  title 
of  opprobrium  which  it  is  very  convenient  to  attach  to  what- 
ever we  do  not  believe  ourselves.  They  forget  that  nobody 
has  a  right  to  call  any  belief  superstitious,  till  he  can  prove  that 
it  is  unfounded.  Now,  no  one  that  lives  can  assert  that  the  re- 
appearance of  the  dead  is  impossible  ;  all  he  has  a  right  to  say 
is,  that  he  does  not  believe  it ;  and  the  interrogation  that  should 
immediately  follow  this  declaration  is,  "  Have  you  devoted  your 
life  to  sifting  all  the  evidence  that  has  been  adduced  on  the  other 
side,  from  the  earliest  periods  of  history  and  tradition  V  and 
even  though  the  answer  were  in  the  affirmative,  and  that  the 
investigation  had  been  conscientiously  pursued,  it  would  be 
still  a  bold  inquirer  that  would  think  himself  entitled  to  say, 
the  question  was  no  longer  open.  But  the  rashness  and  levity 
with  which  mankind  make  professions  of  believing  and  disbe- 
lieving, are,  all  things  considered,  phenomena  much  more  extra- 
ordinary than  the  most  extraordinary  ghost-story  that  ever  was 
related.  The  truth  is,  that  not  one  person  in  a  thousand,  in  the 
proper  sense  of  the  word,  believes  anything ;  they  only  fancy 
they  believe,  because  they  have  never  seriously  considered  the 
meaning  of  the  word  and  all  that  it  involves.    That  which  the 


14 


THE  NIGHT- SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


human  mind  can  not  conceive  of,  is  apt  to  slip  from  its  grasp 
like  water  from  the  hand  ;  and  life  out  of  the  flesh  frills  under 
this  category.  The  observation  of  any  phenomena,  therefore, 
which  enabled  us  to  master  the  idea,  must  necessarily  be  ex- 
tremely beneficial ;  and  it  must  be  remembered,  that  one  single 
thoroughly  well-established  instance  of  the  reappearance  of  a 
deceased  person,  would  not  only  have  this  effect,  but  that  it 
would  afford  a  demonstrative  proof  of  the  deepest  of  all  our  in- 
tuitions, namely,  that  a  future  life  awaits  us. 

Not  to  mention  the  modern  Germans  of  eminence,  who  have 
devoted  themselves  to  this  investigation,  there  have  been  men 
remarkable  for  intellect  in  all  countries,  who  have  considered 
the  subject  worthy  of  inquiry.  Among  the  rest,  Plato,  Pliny, 
and  Lucien  ;  and  in  our  own  country,  that  good  old  divine,  Dr. 
Henry  Moore,  Dr.  Johnson,  Addison,  Isaac  Taylor,  and  many 
others.  It  may  be  objected  that  the  eternally- quoted  case  of 
Nicolai,  the  bookseller  at  Berlin,  and  Dr.  Ferriar's  "  Theory 
of  Apparitions,"  had  not  then  settled  the  question  ;  but  nobody 
doubts  that  Nicolai's  was  a  case  of  disease  ;  and  he  was  well 
aware  of  it  himself,  as  it  appears  to  me,  everybody  so  afflicted, 
is.  I  was  acquainted  with  a  poor  woman,  in  Edinburgh,  who 
suffered  from  this  malady,  brought  on,  I  believe,  by  drinking ; 
but  she  was  perfectly  conscious  of  the  nature  of  the  illusions  ; 
and  that  temperance  and  a  doctor  were  the  proper  exorcists  to 
lay  the  spirits.  With  respect  to  Dr.  Ferriar's  book,  a  more 
shallow  one  was  assuredly  never  allowed  to  settle  any  question  ; 
and  his  own  theory  can  not,  without  the  most  violent  straining, 
and  the  assistance  of  what  he  calls  coincidences,  meet  even  half 
the  cases  he  himself  adduces.  That  such  a  disease,  as  he  de- 
scribes, exists,  nobody  doubts  ;  but  I  maintain  that  there  are 
hundreds  of  cases  on  record,  for  which  the  explanation  does 
not  suffice  ;  and  if  they  have  been  instances  of  spectral  illu- 
sion, all  that  remains  to  be  said,  is,  that  a  fundamental  recon- 
struction of  the  theory  on  that  subject  is  demanded. 

La  Place  says,  in  his  "  Essay  on  Probabilities,"  that  "any  case, 
however  apparently  incredible,  if  it  be  a  recurrent  case,  is  as 
much  entitled,  under  the  laws  of  induction,  to  a  fair  valuation, 


INTRODUCTION. 


15 


as  if  it  had  been  more  probable  beforehand."  Now,  no  one 
will  deny  that  the  case  in  question  possesses  this  claim  to  inves- 
tigation. Determined  skeptics  may,  indeed,  deny  that  there 
exists  any  well-authenticated  instance  of  an  apparition  ;  but 
that,  at  present,  can  only  be  a  mere  matter  of  opinion ;  since 
many  persons,  as  competent  to  judge  as  themselves,  maintain 
the  contrary ;  and  in  the  meantime,  I  arraign  their  right  to 
make  this  objection  till  they  have  qualified  themselves  to  do  so, 
by  a  long  course  of  patient  and  honest  inquiry  ;  always  remem- 
bering that  every  instance  of  error  or  imposition  discovered 
and  adduced,  has  no  positive  value  whatever  in  the  argument, 
but  as  regards  that  single  instance  ;  though  it  may  enforce  upon 
us  the  necessity  of  strong  evidence  and  careful  investigation. 
With  respect  to  the  evidence,  past  and  present,.  I  must  be  al- 
lowed here  to  remark  on  the  extreme  difficulty  of  producing 
it.  Not  to  mention  the  acknowledged  carelessness  of  observers 
and  the  alleged  incapacity  of  persons  to  distinguish  between 
reality  and  illusion,  there  is  an  exceeding  shyness  in  most  peo- 
ple, who,  either  have  seen,  or  fancied  they  have  seen,  an  appa- 
rition, to  speak  of  it  at  all,  except  to  some  intimate  friend  ;  so 
that  one  gets  most  of  the  stories  second-hand  ;  while  even  those 
who  are  less  chary  of  their  communications,  are  imperative 
against  their  name  and  authority  being' given  to  the  public. 
Besides  this,  there  is  a  great  tendency  in  most  people,  after  the  im- 
pression is  over,  to  think  they  may  have  been  deceived ;  and  where 
there  is  no  communication  or  other  circumstance  rendering  this 
conviction  impossible,  it  is  not  difficult  to  acquire  it,  or  at  least 
so  much  of  it  as  leaves  the  case  valueless.  The  seer  is  glad  to 
find  this  refuge  from  the  unpleasant  feelings  engendered  ;  while 
surrounding  friends,  sometimes  from  genuine  skepticism,  and 
sometimes  from  good-nature,  almost  invariably  lean  to  this  ex- 
planation of  the  mystery.  In  consequence  of  these  difficulties 
and  those  attending  the  very  nature  of  the  phenomena,  I  freely 
admit  that  the  facts  I  shall  adduce,  as  they  now  stand,  can  have 
no  scientific  value  ;  they  can  not  in  short,  enter  into  the  region 
of  science  at  all,  still  less  into  that  of  philosophy.  Whatever 
conclusions  we  may  be  led  to  form,  can  not  be  founded'on  pure 


If) 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


induction.  We  must  confine  ourselves  wholly  within  the  region 
of  opinion ;  if  we  venture  beyond  which,  we  shall  assuredly 
founder.  In  the  beginning,  all  sciences  have  been  but  a  collec- 
tion of  facts,  afterward  to  be  examined,  compared,  and  weighed, 
by  intelligent  minds.  To  the  vulgar,  who  do  not  see  the  uni- 
versal law  which  governs  the  universe,  everything  out  of  the 
ordinary  course  of  events,  is  a  prodigy  ;  but  to  the  enlighteijed 
mind  there  are  no  prodigies;  for  it  perceives  that  in  both  the 
moral  and  the  physical  world,  there  is  a  chain  of  uninterrupted 
connection  ;  and  that  the  most  strange  and  even  apparently  con- 
tradictory or  supernatural  fact  or  event  will  be  found,  on  due 
investigation,  to  be  strictly  dependent  on  its  antecedents.  It  is 
possible,  that  there  may  be  a  link  wanting,  and  that  our  inves- 
tigations may,  consequently,  be  fruitless  ;  but  the  link  is  assu- 
redly there,  although  our  imperfect  knowledge  and  limited  vis- 
ion can  trot  find  it. 

And  it  is  here  the  proper  place  to  observe,  that,  in  underta- 
king to  treat  of  the  phenomena  in  question,  I  do  not  propose 
to  consider  them  as  supernatural ;  on  the  contrary,  I  am  per- 
suaded that  the  time  will  come,  when  they  will  be  reduced 
strictly  within  the  bounds  of  science.  It  was  the  tendency  of 
the  last  age  to  reject  and  deny  everything  they  did  not  under- 
stand  ;  I  hope  it  is  the  growing  tendency  of  the  present  one  to 
examine  what  we  do  not  understand.  Equally  disposed  with 
our  predecessors  of  the  eighteenth  century  to  reject  the  super- 
natural, and  to  believe  the  order  of  nature  inviolable,  we  are 
disposed  to  extend  the  bounds  of  nature  and  science,  till  they 
comprise  within  their  limits  all  the  phenomena,  ordinary  and 
extraordinary,  by  which  we  are  surrounded.  Scarcely  a  month 
passes  that  we  do  not  hear  of  some  new  and  important  discov- 
ery in  science.  It  is  a  domain  in  which  nothing  is  stable,  and 
every  year  overthrows  some  of  the  hasty  and  premature  theo- 
ries of  the  preceding  ones ;  and  this  will  continue  to  be  the 
case  as  long  as  scientific  men  occupy  themselves  each  with  his 
own  subject,  without  studying  the  great  and  primal  truths  — 
wh.'t  the  French  call  les  verites  meres  —  which  link  the  whole 
together.    Meantime,  there  is  a  continual  unsettling.  Truth, 


INTRODUCTION. 


17 


if  it  do  not  emanate  from  an  acknowledged  authority,  is  gen- 
erally rejected  ;  and  error,  if  it  do,  is  as  often  accepted  ;  while, 
whoever  disputes  the  received  theory,  whatever  it  be  —  we 
mean  especially  that  adopted  by  the  professors  of  colleges  — 
does  it  at  his  peril.  But  there  is  a  day  yet  brooding  in  the 
bosom  of  time,  when  the  sciences  will  be  no  longer  isolated ; 
when  we  shall  no  longer  deny,  but  be  able  to  account  for,  phe- 
nomena apparently  prodigious,  or  have  the  modesty,  if  we  can 
not  explain  them,  to  admit  that  the  difficulty  arises  solely  from 
our  own  incapacity.  The  system  of  centralization  in  statistics 
seems  to  be  of  doubtful  advantage ;  but  a  greater  degree  of 
centralization  appears  to  be  very  much  needed  in  the  domain 
of  science.  Some  improvement  in  this  respect  might  do  won- 
ders, particularly  if  reinforced  with  a  slight  infusion  of  patience 
and  humility  into  the  minds  of  scientific  men ;  together  with 
the  recollection  that  facts  and  phenomena,  which  do  not  depend 
on  our  will,  must  be  waited  for — that  we  must  be  at  their 
command,  for  they  will  not  be  at  ours. 

But  to  return  once  more  to  our  own  subject.  If  we  do  be- 
lieve that  a  future  life  awaits  us,  there  can  be  nothing  more 
natural  than  the  desire  to  obtain  some  information  as  to  what 
manner  of  life  that  is  to  be  for  which  any  one  of  us  may,  before 
this  time  to-morrow,  have  exchanged  his  present  mode  of  be- 
ing. That  there  does  not  exist  a  greater  interest  with  regard 
to  this  question  in  the  mind  of  man,  arises  partly  from  the 
vague,  intangible  kind  of  belief  he  entertains  of  the  fact ;  partly 
from  his  absorption  in  worldly  affairs,  and  the  hard  and  indi- 
gestible food  upon  which  his  clerical  shepherds  pasture  him  — 
for,  under  dogmatic  theology,  religion  seems  to  have  withered 
away  to  the  mere  husk  of  spiritualism ;  and  partly,  also,  from 
the  apparent  impossibility  of  pursuing  the  inquiry  to  "any  pur- 
pose. As  I  said  before,  observation  and  experience  can  alone 
guide  us  in  such  an  inquiry  ;  for,  though  most  people  have  a 
more  or  less  intuitive  sense  of  their  own  immortality,  intuition 
is  silent  as  to  the  mode  of  it ;  and  the  question  I  am  anxious 
here  to  discuss  with  my  readers  is,  whether  we  have  any  facts 
to  observe,  or  any  experience  from  which,  on  this  most  inter- 


18 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


esting  of  all  subjects,  a  conclusion  may  be  drawn.  Great  as  the 
difficulty  is  of  producing  evidence,  it  will,  I  think,  be  pretty 
generally  admitted  that,  although  each  individual  case,  as  it 
stands  alone,  may  be  comparatively  valueless,  the  amount  of 
recurrent  cases  forms  a  body  of  evidence  that,  on  any  other 
subject,  would  scarcely  be  rejected ;  and  since,  if  the  facts  are 
accepted,  they  imperatively  demand  an  explanation  —  for,  as- 
suredly, the  present  theory  of  spectral  illusions  can  not  com- 
prise them  —  our  inquiry,  let  it  terminate  in  whatever  conclu- 
sion it  may,  can  not  be  useless  or  uninteresting.  Various  views 
of  the  phenomena  in  question  may  be  taken ;  and  although  I 
shall  offer  my  own  opinions  and  the  theories  and  opinions  of 
others,  I  insist  upon  none.  I  do  not  write  to  dogmatise,  but  to 
suggest  reflection  and  inquiry.  The  books  of  Dr.  Ferriar,  Dr. 
Hibbert,  and  Dr.  Thatcher,  the  American,  are  all  written  to 
support  one  exclusive  theory ;  and  they  only  give  such  cases  as 
serve  to  sustain  it.  They  maintain  that  the  whole  phenomena 
are  referrible  to  nervous  or  sanguineous  derangement,  and  are 
mere  subjective  illusions ;  and  whatever  instance  can  not  be 
covered  by  this  theory,  they  reject  as  false,  or  treat  as  a  case 
of  extraordinary  coincidence.  In  short,  they  arrange  the  facts 
to  their  theory,  not  their  theory  to  the  facts.  Their  books  can 
not,  therefore,  claim  to  be  considered  as  anything  more  than 
essays  on  a  special  disease  ;  they  have  no  pretence  whatever  to 
the  character  of  investigations.  The  question,  consequently, 
remains  as  much  an  open  one  as  before  they  treated  it ;  while 
we  have  the  advantage  of  their  experience  and  information, 
with  regard  to  the  peculiar  malady  that  forms  the  subject  of 
their  works.  On  that  subject  it  is  not  my  intention  to  enter ;  it 
is  a  strictly  medical  one,  and  every  information  may  be  obtained 
respecting  it  in  the  above-named  treatises,  and  others  emana- 
ting from  the  faculty. 

The  subjects  I  do  intend  to  treat  of  are  the  various  kinds  of 
prophetic  dreams,  presentiments,  second-sight,  and  apparitions; 
and,  in  short,  all  that  class  of  phenomena  which  appears  to 
throw  some  light  on  our  physical  nature,  and  on  the  probable 
state  of  the  soul  after  death.    In  this  discussion,  I  shall  make 


INTRODUCTION. 


19 


free  use  of  my  German  authorities,  Doctors  Kerner,  Stilling, 
Werner,  Eschenmayer,  Ennemoser,  Passavent,  Schubert,  Von 
Meyer,  &c,  &c. ;  and  I  here  make  ageneral  acknowledgment 
to  that  effect,  because  it  would  embarrass  my  book  too  much 
to  be  constantly  giving  names  and  references,  although,  when 
I  quote  their  words  literally,  I  shall  make  a  point  of  doing  so ; 
and  because,  also,  that,  as  1  have  been  both  thinking  and  read- 
ing much  on  these  subjects  for  a  considerable  time  past,  I  am, 
in  fact,  no  longer  in  a  condition  to  appropriate,  either  to  them 
or  to  myself,  each  his  own.  This,  however,  is  a  matter  of  very 
little  consequence,  as  I  am  not  desirous  of  claiming  any  idea  as 
mine  that  can  be  found  elsewhere.  It  is  enough  for  me,  if  I 
succeed  in  making  a  tolerably  clear  exposition  of  the  subject, 
and  can  induce  other  people  to  reflect  upon  it. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  DWELLER  IN  THE  TEMPLE. 

It  is  almost  needless  to  observe,  that  the  Scriptures  repeatedly 
speak  of  man  as  a  tripartite  being,  consisting  of  spirit,  soul,  and 
body :  and  that,  according  to  St.  Paul,  we  have  two  bodies  —  a 
natural  body  and  a  spiritual  body ;  the  former  being  designed 
as  our  means  of  communication  with  the  external  world — an 
instrument  to  be  used  and  controlled  by  "our  nobler  parts.  It  is 
this  view  of  it,  carried  to  a  fanaticism,  which  has  led  to  the 
various  and  extraordinary  mortifications  recorded  of  ascetics. 
As  is  remarked  by  the  Rev.  Hare  Townshend,  in  a  late  edition 
of  his  book  on  mesmerism,  in  this  fleshly  body  consists  our  or- 
ganic life  ;  in  the  body  which  we  are  to  retain  through  eternity, 
consists  our  fundamental  life.  May  not  the  first,  he  says,  "  be 
a  temporary  development  of  the  last,  just  as  leaves,  flowers,  and 
fruits,  are  the  temporary  developments  of  a  tree  ?  And  in  the 
same  manner  that  these  pass  and  drop  away,  yet  leave  the  prin- 


20 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


clple  of  reproduction  behind,  so  may  our  present  organs  be 
detached  from  us  by  death,  and  yet  the  ground  of  our  existence 
be  spared  to  us  continuously." 

Without  eutering  into  the  subtle  disputes  of  philosophers, 
with  regard  to  the  spirit,  a  subject  on  which  there  is  a  standing 
controversy  between  the  disciples  of  Hegel  and  those  of  other 
teachers,  I  need  only  observe  that  the  Scriptures  seem  to  indi- 
cate what  some  of  the  heathen  sages  taught,  that  the  spirit  that 
dwells  within  us  is  the  spirit  of  God,  incorporated  in  us  for  a 
period,  for  certain  ends  of  his  own,  to  be  thereby  wrought  out. 
What  those  ends  are,  it  does  not  belong  to  my  present  subject 
to  consider.  In  this  spirit  so  imparted  to  us,  dwells,  says  Es- 
chenmayer,  the  conscience,  which  keeps  watch  over  the  body 
and  the  soul,  saying,  "  Thus  shalt  thou  do !"  And  it  is  to  this 
Christ  addresses  himself  when  he  bids  his  disciples  become 
perfect,  like  their  Father  in  heaven.  The  soul  is  subject  to  the 
'  spirit ;  and  its  functions  are,  to  will,  or  choose,  to  think,  and  to 
feel,  and  to  become  thereby  cognizant  of  the  true,  the  beauti- 
ful, and  the  good  ;  comprehending  the  highest  principle,  the 
highest  ideal,  and  the  most  perfect  happiness.  The  Ego,  or  I, 
is  the  resultant  of  the  three  forces,  Pneuma,  Psyche,  Soma — 
spirit,  soul,  and  body. 

In  the  spirit  or  soul,  or  rather  in  both  conjoined,  dwells,  also, 
the  power  of  spiritual  seeing,  or  irituitive  knowing;  for,  as 
there  is  a  spiritual  body,  there  is  a  spiritual  eye,  and  a  spiritual 
ear,  and  so  forth ;  or,  to  speak  more  correctly,  all  these  sensu- 
ous functions  are  comprised  in  one  universal  sense,  which  does 
not  need  the  aid  of  the  "bodily  organs ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  is 
most  efficient  when  most  freed  from  them.  It  remains  to  be 
seen  whether,  or  in  what  degree,  such  separation  can  take  place 
during  life  ;  complete  it  can  not  be  till  death  ;  but  whoever  be- 
lieves sincerely  that  the  divine  spirit  dwells  within  him,  can,  I 
should  think,  find  no  difficulty  in  conceiving  that,  although"  from 
the  temporary  conditions  to  which  that  spirit  is  subjected,  this 
universal  faculty  is  limited  and  obscured,  it  must  still  retain  its 
indefeasible  attribute. 

We  may  naturally  conclude  that  the  most  perfect  state  of  man 


THE  DWELLER  IN  THE  TEMPLE. 


21 


on  earth  consists  in  the  most  perfect  unity  of  the  spirit  and  the 
soul ;  and  to  those  who  in  this  life  have  attained  the  nearest  to 
that  unity  will  the  entire  assimilation  of  the  two,  after  they  are 
separated  from  the  body,  be  the  easiest ;  while  to  those  who 
have  lived  only  their  intellectual  and  external  life,  this  union 
must  be  extremely  difficult,  the  soul  having  chosen  its  part  with 
the  body,  and  divorced  itself,  as  much  as  in  it  lay,  from  the 
spirit.  The  voice  of  conscience  is  then  scarcely  heard  ;  and  the 
soul,  degraded  and  debased,  can  no  longer  perform  its  functions 
of  discerning  the  true,  the  beautiful,  and  the  good. 

On  these  distinct  functions  of  the  soul  and  spirit,  however,  it 
is  not  my  intention  to  insist,  since  it  appears  to  me  a  subject  on 
which  we  are  not  yet  in  a  condition  to  dogmatize.  We  know 
rather  more  about  our  J>odies,  by  means  of  which  the  soul  and 
spirit  are  united  and  brought  into  contact  with  the  material 
world,  and  which  are  constructed  wholly  with  a  view  to  the 
conditions  of  that  world ;  such  as  time,  space,  solidity,  extension, 
&c,  &c.  But  we  must  conceive  of  God  as  necessarily  inde- 
pendent of  these  conditions.  To  Him,  all  times  and  all  places 
must  be  for  ever  present ;  and  it  is  thus  that  he  is  omniscient 
and  omnipresent ;  and  since  we  are  placed  by  the  spirit  in  im- 
mediate relation  with  God  and  the  spiritual  world,  just  as  we 
are  placed  by  the  body  in  immediate  relation  with  the  material 
world,  we  may,  in  the  first  place,  form  a  notion  of  the  possibil- 
ity that  some  faint  gleams  of  these  inherent  attributes  may,  at 
times,  shoot  up  through  the  clay  in  which  the  spirit  has  taken 
up  its  temporary  abode ;  and  we  may  also  admit,  that  through 
the  connection  which  exists  between  us  and  the  spiritual  world, 
it  is  not  impossible  but  that  we  may,  at  times,  and  under  cer- 
tain conditions,  become  cognizant  of,  and  enter  into  more  im- 
mediate relation  with  it.  This  is  the  only  postulate  I  ask ;  for, 
as  I  said  before,  I  do  not  wish  to  enforce  opinions,  but  to  sug- 
gest probabilities,  or  at  least  possibilities,  and  thus  arouse  reflec- 
tion and  inquiry. 

With  respect  to  the  term  invisible  world,  I  beg  to  remind  my 
readers,  that  what  we  call  seeing  is  merely  the  function  of  an 
organ  constructed  for  that  purpose  in  relation  to  the  external 


22 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


world  ;  and  so  limited  are  its  powers,  that  we  are  surrounded  by 
many  things  in  that  world  which  we  can  not  see  without  the  aid 
of  artificial  appliances  and  many  other  things  which  we  can  not 
see  even  with  them ;  the  atmosphere  in  which  we  live,  for  ex- 
ample, although  its  weight  and  mechanical  forces  are  the  sub- 
jects of  accurate  calculation,  is  entirely  imperceptible  to  our 
visual  organs.  Thus,  the  fact  that  we  do  not  commonly  see 
them,  forms  no  legitimate  objection  to  the  hypothesis  of  our 
being  surrounded  by  a  world  of  spirits,  or  of  that  world  being 
inter-diffused  among  us.  Supposing  the  question  to  be  decided 
that  we  do  sometimes  become  cognizant  of  them,  which,  how- 
ever, I  admit  it  is  not,  since,  whether  the  apparitions  are 
subjective,  or  objective,  that  is,  whether  they  are  the  mere 
phenomena  of  disease,  or  real  out-standing  appearances,  is  the 
inquiry  I  desire  to  promote  —  but,  I  say,  supposing  that  ques- 
tion were  decided  in  the  affirmative,  the  next  that  arises  is,  how, 
or  by  what  means  do  we  see  them ;  or,  if  they  address  us,  hear 
them?  If  that  universal  sense  which  appears  to  me  to  be  in- 
separable from  the  idea  of  spirit,  be  once  admitted,  I  think 
there  can  be  no  difficulty  in  answering  this  question;  and -if  it 
be  objected  that  we  are  conscious  of  no  such  sense,  I  answer, 
that  both  in  dreams  and  in  certain  abnormal  states  of  the  body, 
it  is  frequently  manifested-  In  order  to  render  this  more  clear, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  to  give  an  interesting  instance  of  this  sort 
of  phenomenon,  I  will  transcribe  a  passage  from  a  letter  of  St. 
Augustine  to  his  friend  Evadius  (Epistola  159.  Antwerp  edition). 

"  I  will  relate  to  you  a  circumstance,'*  he  writes,  "  which  will 
furnish  you  matter  for  reflection.  Our  brother  Sennadius,  well 
known  to  us  all  as  an  eminent  physician,  and  whom  we  espe- 
cially love,  who  is  now  at  Carthage,  after  having  distinguished 
himself  at  Rome,  and  with  whose  piety  and  active  benevolence 
you  are  well  acquainted,  could  yet,  nevertheless,  as  he  has 
lately  narrated  to  us,  by  no  means  bring  himself  to  believe  in  a 
life  after  death.  Now,  God,  doubtless,  not  willing  that  his  soul 
should  perish,  there  appeared  to  him  one  night,  in  a  dream,  a 
radiant  youth  of  noble  aspect,  who  bade  him  follow  him ;  and 
as  Sennadius  obeyed,  they  came  to  a  city  where,  on  the  right 


THE  DWELLER  IN  THE  TEMPLE. 


23 


side,  he  heard  a  chorus  of  the  most  heavenly  voices.  As  he 
desired  to  know  whence  this  divine  harmony  proceeded,  the 
youth  told  him  that  what  he  heard  were  the  songs  of  the  bles- 
sed ;  whereupon  he  awoke,  and  thought  no  more  of  his  dream 
than  people  usually  do.  On  another  night,  however,  behold  ! 
the  youth  appears  to  him  again,  and  asks  him  if  he  knows  him  ; 
and  Sennadius  related  to  him  all  the  particulars  of  his  former 
dream,  which  he  well  remembered.  1  Then,'  said  the  youth, 
'  was  it  while  sleeping  or  waking  that  you  saw  these  things  V  — 
*  I  was  sleeping,'  answered  Sennadius.  '  You  are  right,'  re- 
turned the  youth,  '  it  was  in  your  sleep  that  you  saw  these 
things ;  and  know,  O  Sennadius,  that  what  you  see  now  is  also 
in  your  sleep.  But  if  this  be  so,  tell  me  where  then  is  your 
body?'  —  'In  my  bedchamber,'  answered  Sennadius.  'But 
know  you  not.'  continued  the  stranger,  4  that  your  eyes,  which 
form  a  part  of  your  body,  are  closed  and  inactive?'  — 1 1  know 
it,'  answered  he.  *  Then,'  said  the  youth,  '  with  what  eyes  see 
you  these  things  V  And  Sennadius  eould  not  answer  him  ;  and 
as  he  hesitated,  the  youth  spoke  again,  and  explained  to  him 
the  motive  of  his  questions.  1  As  the  eyes  of  your  body,'  said 
he,  4  which  lies  now  on  your  bed  and  sleeps,  are  inactive  and 
useless,  and  yet  you  have  eyes  wherewith  you  see  me  and  these 
things  I  have  shown  unto  you  ;  so  after  death,  when  these  bodily 
organs  fail  you,  you  will  have  a  vital  power,  whereby  you  will 
live,  and  a  sensitive  faculty,  whereby  you  will  perceive.  Doubt, 
therefore,  no  longer  that  there  is  a  life  after  death.'  And  thus," 
said  this  excellent  man,  "  was  I  convinced,  and  all  doubts  re- 
moved." 

I  confess  there  appears  to  me  a  beauty  and  a  logical  truth  in 
this  dream  that  1  think  might  convince  more  than  the  dreamer. 

It  is  by  the  hypothesis  of  this  universal  sense,  latent  within 
us  —  an  hypothesis  which,  whoever  believes  that  we  are  immor- 
tal spirits,  incorporated  for  a  season  in  a  material  body,  can 
scarcely  reject — that  I  seek  to  explain  those  perceptions  which 
are  not  comprised  within  the  functions  of  our  bodily  organs. 
It  seems  to  me  to  be  the  key  to  all  or  nearly  all  of  them,  as  far 
as  our  own  part  in  the  phenomena  extends.    But,  supposing 


24 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


this  admitted,  there  would  then  remain  the  difficulty  of  account- 
ing for  the  partial  and  capricious  glimpses  we  get  of  it ;  while 
in  that  department  of  the  mystery  which  regards  apparitions, 
except  such  as  are  the  pure  result  of  disease,  we  must  grope 
our  way,  with  very  little  light  to  guide  us,  as  to  the  conditions 
and  motives  which  might  possibly  bring  them  into  any  imme- 
diate relation  with  us. 

To  any  one  who  has  been  fortunate  enough  to  witness  one 
genuine  case  of  clairvoyance,  I  think  the  conception  of  this 
universal  sense  will  not  be  difficult,  however  the  mode  of  its 
exercise  may  remain  utterly  incomprehensible.  As  I  have  said 
above  —  to  the  great  Spirit  and  Fountain  of  life,  all  things,  in 
both  space  and  time,  must  be  present.  However  impossible  it 
is  to  our  finite  minds  to  conceive  this,  we  must  believe  it.  It 
may,  in  some  slight  degree,  facilitate  the  conception. to  remem- 
ber that  action,  once  begun,  never  ceases  —  an  impulse  given 
is  transmitted  on  for  ever ;  a  sound  breathed  reverberates  in 
eternity  ;  and  thus  the  past  is  always  present,  although,  for  the 
purpose  of  fitting  us  for  this  mortal  life,  our  ordinary  senses  are 
so  constituted  as  to  be  unperceptive  of  these  phenomena.  With 
respect  to  what  we  call  the  future,  it  is  more  difficult  still  for 
us  to  conceive  it  as  present;  nor,  as  far  as  I  know,  can  we 
borrow  from  the  sciences  the  same  assistance  as  mechanical 
discoveries  have  just  furnished  me  with  in  regard  to  the  past. 
How  a  spirit  sees  that  which  has  not  yet,  to  our  senses,  taken 
place,  seems  certainly  inexplicable.  Foreseeing  it  is  not  inex- 
plicable :  we  foresee  many  things  by  arguing  on  given  premises, 
although,  from  our  own  finite  views,  we  are  always  liable  to  be 
mistaken.  Louis  Lambert  says  :  "  Such  events  as  are  the  prod- 
uct of  humanity,  and  the  result  of  its  intelligence,  have  their 
own  causes,  in  which  they  lie  latent,  just  as  our  actions  are 
accomplished  in  our  thoughts  previous  to  any  outward  demon- 
stration of  them ;  presentiments  and  prophecies  consist  in  the 
intuitive  perception  of  these  causes."  This  explanation,  which 
is  quite  conformable  with  that  of  Cicero,  may  aid  us  in  some 
degree  as  regards  a  certain  small  class  of  phenomena ;  but 
ihere  is  something  involved  in  the  question  much  more  subtle 


THE  DWELLER  IN  THE  TEMPLE. 


25 


than  this.  Our  dreams  can  give  us  the  only  idea  of  it ;  for 
there  we  do  actually  see  and  hear,  not  only  that  which  never 
was,  but  that  which  never  will  be.  Actions  and  events,  words 
and  sounds,  persons  and  places,  are  as  clearly  and  vividly  pres- 
ent to  us  as  if  they  were  actually  what  they  seem  ;  and  I  should 
think  that  most  people  must  be  somewhat  puzzled  to  decide  in 
regard  to  certain  scenes  and  circumstances  that  live  in  their 
memory,  whether  the  images  are  the  result  of  their  waking  or 
sleeping  experience.  Although  by  no  means  a  dreamer,  and 
without  the  most  remote  approximation  to  any  faculty  of  pre- 
sentiment, I  know  this  is  the  case  with  myself.  I  remember 
also  a  very  curious  effect  being  produced  upon  me,  when  I  was 
abroad,  some  years  ago,  from  eating  the  unwholesome  bread  to 
which  we  were  reduced,  in  consequence  of  a  scarcity.  Some 
five  or  six  times  a  day  I  was  seized  with  a  sort  of  vertigo, 
during  which  I  seemed  to  pass  through  certain  scenes,  and  was 
conscious  of  certain  words,  which  appeared  to  me  to  have  a 
strange  connection,  with  either  some  former  period  of  my  life, 
or  else  some  previous  state  of  existence.  The  words  and  the 
scenes  were  on  each  occasion  precisely  the  same  :  I  was  always 
aware  of  that,  and  I  always  made  the  strongest  efforts  to  grasp 
and  retain  them  in  my  memory,  but  I  could  not.  I  only  knew 
that  the  thing  Jiad  been  ;  the  words  and  the  scenes  were  gone. 
I  seemed  to  pass  momentarily  into  another  sphere  and  back 
again.  This  was  purely  the  result  of  disorder;  but,  like  a 
dream,  it  shows  how  we  may  be  perceptive  of  that  which  is 
not,  and  which  never  may  be ;  rendering  it,  therefore,  possible 
to  conceive  that  a  spirit  may  be  equally  perceptive  of  that  which 
shall  be.  I  am  very  far  from  meaning  to  imply  that  these  ex- 
amples remove  the  difficulty :  they  do  not  explain  the  thing ; 
they  only  show  somewhat  the  mode  of  it.  But  it  must  be 
remembered  that  when  physiologists  pretend  to  settle  the  whole 
question  of  apparitions  by  the  theory  of  spectral  illusions,  they 
are  exactly  in  the  same  predicament.  They  can  supply  exam- 
ples of  similar  phenomena ;  but  how  a  person,  perfectly  in  his 
senses,  should  receive  the  spectral  visits  of,  not  only  friends, 
but  strangers,  when  he  is  thinking  of  no  such  matter  —  or  by 

2 


V.G 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


what  process,  mental  or  optical,  the  figures  are  conjured  up  — 
remains  as  much  a  mystery  as  before  a  line  was  written  on  the 
Bubject. 

All  people  and  all  ages  have  believed,  more  or  less,  in  pro- 
phetic dreams,  presentiments,  and  apparitions ;  and  all  histo- 
rians have  furnished  examples  of  them.  That  the  truths  may 
be  frequently  distorted  and  mingled  with  fable,  is  no  argument 
against  those  traditions ;  if  it  were,  all  history  must  be  rejected 
on  the  same  plea.  Both  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  furnish 
numerous  examples  of  these  phenomena  ;  and  although  Christ 
and  the  apostles  reproved  all  the  superstitions  of  the  age,  these 
persuasions  are  not  included  in  their  reprehensions. 

Neither  is  the  comparative  rarity  of  these  phenomena  any 
argument  against  their  possibility.  There  are  many  strange 
things  which  occur  still  more  rarely,  but  which  we  do  not  look 
upon  as  supernatural  or  miraculous.  Of  nature's  ordinary 
laws,  we  yet  know  but  little ;  of  their  aberrations  and  pertur- 
bations, still  less.  How  should  we,  when  the  world  is  a  miracle 
and  life  a  dream,  of  which  we  know  neither  the  beginning  nor 
the  end  !  We  do  not  even  know  that  we  see  anything  as  it  is, 
or  rather,  we  know  that  we  do  not.  We  see  things  but  as  our 
visual  organs  represent  them  to  us ;  and  were  those  organs  dif- 
ferently constructed,  the  aspect  of  the  world  would  to  us  be 
changed.  How,  then,  can  we  pretend  to  decide  upon  what  is 
and  what  is  not  ] 

Nothing  could  be  more  perplexing  to  any  one  who  read 
them  with  attention,  than  the  trials  for  witchcraft  of  the  seven- 
teenth century.  Many  of  the  feats  of  the  ancient  thaumatur- 
gists  and  wonder-workers  of  the  temples  might  have  been 
nearly  as  much  so,  but  these  were  got  rid  of  by  the  easy  expe- 
dient of  pronouncing  them  fables  and  impostures :  but,  during 
the  witch-mania,  so  many  persons  proved  their  faith  in  their 
own  miraculous  powers  by  the  sacrifice  of  their  lives,  that  it 
was  scarcely  possible  to  doubt  their  having  some  foundation  for 
their  own  persuasion,  though  what  that  foundation  could  be, 
till  the  late  discoveries  in  animal  magnetism,  it  was  difficult  to 
co  iceive;  but  here  we  have  a  new  page  opened  to  us,  which 


THE  DWELLER  IN  THE  TEMPLE. 


(27 


concerns  both  the  history  of  the  world  and  the  history  of  man, 
as  an  individual ;  and  we  begin  to  see  that  that  which  the  igno- 
rant thought  supernatural,  and  the  wise  impossible,  has  been 
both  natural  and  true.  While  the  scientific  men  of  Great  Brit- 
ain, and  several  of  our  journalists,  have  been  denying  and 
ridiculing  the  reports  of  these  phenomena,  the  most  eminent 
physicians  of  Germany  have  been  quietly  studying  and  investi- 
gating them,  and  giving  to  the  world,  in  their  works,  the  results 
of  their  experience.  Among  the  rest,  Dr.  Joseph  Ennemoser, 
of  Berlin,  has  presented  to  us  in  his  two  books  on  "  Magic," 
and  on  "  The  Connection  of  Magnetism  with  Nature  and  Re- 
ligion," the  fruits  of  his  thirty  years'  study  of  this  subject — 
during  the  course  of  which  he  has  had  repeated  opportunities 
of  investigating  all  the  phenomena,  and  of  making  himself  per 
fectly  familiar  with  even  the  most  rare  and  perplexing.  To 
any  one  who  has  studied  these  works,  the  mysteries  of  the  tem- 
ples and  of  the  witch-trials  are  mysteries  no  longer ;  and  he 
writes  with  the  professed  design,  not  to  make  science  mystical, 
but  to  bring  the  mysterious  within  the  bounds  of  science.  The 
phenomena,  as  he  justly  says,  are  as  old  as  the  human  race. 
Animal  magnetism  is  no  new  development,  no  new  discovery. 
Inseparable  from  life,  although,  like  many  other  vital  phenom- 
ena, so  subtle  in  its  influences,  that  only  in  abnormal  cases  it 
attracts  attention,  it  has  exhibited  itself  more  or  less  in  all  ages 
and  in  all  countries.  But  its  value  as  a  medical  agent  is  only 
now  beginning  to  dawn  on  the  civilized  world,  while  its  impor- 
tance in  a  higher  point  of  view  is  yet  perceived  by  but  few. 
Every  human  being  who  has  ever  withdrawn  himself  from  the 
strife,  and  the  turmoil,  and  the  distraction,  of  the  world  without, 
in  order  to  look  within,  must  have  found  himself  perplexed  by  a 
thousand  questions  with  regard  to  his  own  being,  which  he  would 
find  no  one  able  to  solve.  In  the  study  of  animal  magnetism, 
he  will  first  obtain  some  gleams  of  a  light  which  will  show  him 
that  he  is  indeed  the  child  of  God  !  and  that,  though  a  dweller 
on  the  earth,  and  fallen,  some  traces  of  his  divine  descent,  and 
of  his  unbroken  connection  with  a  higher  order  of  being,  still 
remain  to  comfort  and  encourage  him.    He  will  find  that  there 


28 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


exists  in  his  species  the  germs  of  faculties  that  are  never  fully 
unfolded  here  on  earth,  and  which  have  no  reference  to  this 
state  of  being.  They  exist  in  all  men,  but  in  most  cases  are 
so  faintly  elicited  as  not  to  be  observable ;  and  when  they  do 
shoot  up  here  and  there,  they  are  denied,  disowned,  misinter- 
preted, and  maligned.  It  is  true  that  their  development  is 
often  the  symptom  and  effect  of  disease,  which  seems  to  change 
the  relations  of  our  "material  and  immaterial  parts ;  it  is  true 
that  some  of  the  phenomena  resulting  from  these  faculties  are 
stimulated  by  disease,  as  in  the  case  of  spectral  illusions  ;  and  it 
is  true  that  imposture  and  folly  intrude  their  unhallowed  foot- 
steps into  this  domain  of  science,  as  into  that  of  all  others  :  but 
there  is  a  deep  and  holy  well  of  truth  to  be  discovered  in  this 
neglected  by-path  of  nature,  by  those  who  seek  it,  from  which 
they  may  draw  the  purest  consolations  for  the  present,  the  most 
ennobling  hopes  for  the  future,  and  the  most  valuable  aid  in 
penetrating  through  the  letter  into  the  spirit  of  the  Scriptures. 

I  confess  it  makes  me  sorrowful  when  I  hear  men  laughing, 
scorning,  and  denying  this  their  birthright ;  and  I  can  not  but 
grieve  to  think  how  closely  and  heavily  their  clay  must  be 
wrapped  about  them,  and  how  the  external  and  sensuous  life 
must  have  prevailed  over  the  internal,  when  no  gleam  from 
within  breaks  through  to  show  them  that  these  things  are  true. 


WAKING  AND  SLEEPING,  ETC. 


29 


CHAPTER  III. 

WAKING  AND  SLEEPING;  AND  HOW  THE  DWELLER  IN  THE  TEMPLE 
SOMETIMES  LOOKS  ABROAD. 

To  begin  with  the  most  simple  —  or  rather,  I  should  say,  the 
most  ordinary  —  class  of  phenomena,  for  we  can  scarcely  call 
that  simple,  the  mystery  of  which  we  have  never  been  able  to 
penetrate  —  I  mean  dreaming  —  everybody's  experience  will 
suffice  to  satisfy  them  that  their  ordinary  dreams  take  place  in 
a  state  of  imperfect  sleep,  and  that  this  imperfect  sleep  may  be 
caused  by  any  bodily  or  mental  derangement  whatever,  or  even 
from  an  ill-made  bed,  or  too  much  or  too  little  covering ;  and 
it  is  not  difficult  to  conceive  that  the  strange,  confused,  and  dis- 
jointed visions  we  are  subject  to  on  these  occasions,  may  pro- 
ceed from  some  parts  of  the  brain  being  less  at  rest  than  the 
others ;  so  that,  assuming  phrenology  to  be  fact,  one  organ  is 
not  in  a  state  to  correct  the  impressions  of  another.  Of  such 
vain  and  insignificant  visions,  I  need  scarcely  say  it  is  not  my 
intention  to  treat ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  I  must  observe,  that 
when  we  have  admitted  the  above  explanation,  as  far  as  it  goes, 
we  have  not,  even  in  regard  to  them,  made  much  progress  tow- 
ard removing  the  difficulty.  If  dreaming  resembled  thinking, 
the  explanations  might  be  quite  satisfactory ;  but  the  truth  is, 
that  dreaming  is  not  thinking,  as  we  think  in  our  wTaking  state, 
but  is  more  analogous  to  thinking  in  delirium  or  acute  mania, 
or  in  that  chronic  condition  which  gives  rise  to  sensuous  illu- 
sions. In  our  ordinary  normal  state,  conceiving  of  places  or 
persons  does  not  enable  us  to  see  them  or  hold  communion  with 
them,  nor  do  we  fancy  that  we  do  either.  It  is  true,  that  I  have 
heard  some  painters  say  that,  by  closing  their  eyes  and  concen- 
trating their  thoughts  on  an  object,  they  can  bring  it  more  or 


30 


THE  NIGHT- SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


less  vividly  before  them,  and  Blake  professed  actually  to  see  his 
sitters  when  they  were  not  present ;  but  whatever  interpreta- 
tions we  may  put  upon  this  curious  faculty,  his  case  was  clearly 
abnormal,  and  connected  with  some  personal  peculiarity,  eithei 
physical  or  psychical ;  and,  after  making  the  most  of  it,  it  must 
be  admitted  that  it  can  enter  into  no  sort  of  comparison  with 
that  we  possess  in  sleep,  when,  in  our  most  ordinary  dreams, 
untrammelled  by  time  or  space,  we  visit  the  uttermost  ends  of 
the  earth,  fly  in  the  air,  swim  in  the  sea,  listen  to  beautiful  mu- 
sic and  eloquent  orations,  behold  the  most  charming  as  well  as 
the  most  loathsome  objects  ;  and  not  only  see,  but  converse  with 
our  friends,  absent  or  present,  dead  or  alive.    Every  one,  I 
think,  will  grant  that  there  is  the  widest  possible  difference 
between  conceiving  of  these  things  when  awake,  and  dreaming 
them.    When  we  dream,  we  do,  we  see,  we  say,  we  hear,  &c, 
&c,  that  is,  we  believe  at  the  time  we  do  so ;  and  what  more 
can  be  said  of  us  when  we  are  awake,  than  that  we  believe  we 
are  doing,  seeing,  saying,  hearing,  &c.    It  is  by  external  cir- 
cumstances, and  the  results  of  our  actions,  that  we  are  able  to 
decide  whether  we  have  actually  done  a  thing  or  seen  a  place, 
or  only  dreamt  that  we  have  done  so  ;  and  as  I  have  said  above, 
after  some  lapse  of  time  we  are  not  always  able  to  distinguish 
between  the  two.  While  dreaming,  we  frequently  ask  ourselves 
whether  we  are  awake  or  asleep  ;  and  nothing  is  more  common 
than  to  hear  people  say,  "  Well,  I  think  I  did,  or  heard,  so  and 
so ;  but  I  am  not  sure  whether  it  was  so,  or  whether  I  dreamt 
it."    Thus,  therefore,  the  very  lowest  order  of  dreaming,  the 
most  disjointed  and  perplexed,  is  far  removed  from  the  most 
vivid  presentations  of  our  waking  thoughts ;  and  it  is  in  this 
respect,  I  think,  that  the  explanations  of  the  phenomena  hitherto 
offered  by  phrenologists,  and  the  metaphysicians  of  this  country, 
are  inadequate  and  unsatisfactory ;  while,  as  regards  the  anal- 
ogy between  the  visions  of  sleep  and  delirium,  whatever  simi- 
larity there  may  be  in  the  effects,  we  can  not  suppose  the  cause 
to  be  identical :  since,  in  delirium  the  images  and  delusions  are 
the  result  of  excessive  action  of  the  brain,  which  we  must  con- 
clude to  be  the  very  reverse  of  its  condition  in  sleep.  Pinel 


WAKING  AND  SLEEPING,  ETC. 


31 


certainly  has  hazarded  an  opinion  that  sleep  is  occasioned  by  an 
efflux  of  blood  to  the  head,  and  consequent  compression  of  the 
brain  —  a  theory  which  would  have  greater  weight  were  sleep 
more  strictly  periodical  than  it  is ;  but  which,  at  present,  it 
seems  impossible  to  reconcile  with  many  established  facts. 

Some  of  the  German  physiologists  and  psychologists  have 
taken  a  deeper  view  of  this  question  of  dreaming,  from  consid- 
ering it  in  connection  with  the  phenomena  of  animal  magnetism  ; 
and  although  their  theories  differ  in  some  respects,  they  all  unite 
in  looking  toward  that  department  of  nature  for  instruction. 
While  one  section  of  these  inquirers,  the  Exegetical  Society  of 
Stockholm  included,  calls  in  the  aid  of  supernatural  agency, 
another,  among  whom  Dr.  Joseph  Ennemoser,  of  Berlin,  ap- 
pears to  be  one  of  the  most  eminent,  maintains  that  the  expla- 
nation of  the  mystery  is  to  be  chiefly  sought  in  the  great  and 
universal  law  of  polarity,  which  extends  not  only  beyond  the 
limits  of  this  earth,  but  beyond  the  limits  of  this  syslem,  which 
must  necessarily  be  in  connection  with  all  others ;  so  that  there 
is  thus  an  eternal  and  never-ceasing  inter-action,  of  which,  from 
the  multiplicity  and  contrariety  of  the  influences,  we  are  insen- 
sible, just  as  we  are  insensible  to  the  pressure  of  the  atmosphere, 
from  its  impinging  on  us  equally  on  all  sides. 

Waking  and  sleeping  are  the  day  and  night  sides  of  organic 
life,  during  which  alternations  an  animal  is  placed  in  different 
relations  to  the  external  world,  and  to  these  alternations  all 
organisms  are  subject.  The  completeness  and  independence  of 
each  individual  organism,  are  in  exact  ratio  to  the  number  and 
completeness  of  the  organs  it  develops  ;  and  thus  the  locomotive 
animal  has  the  advantage  of  the  plant  or  the  zoophyte,  while,  of 
the  animal  kingdom,  man  is  the  most  complete  and  independent ; 
and,  although  still  a  member  of  the  universal  whole,  and  there- 
fore incapable  of  isolating  himself,  yet  better  able  than  any 
other  organism  to  ward  off  external  influences,  and  comprise 
his  world  within  himself.  But,  according  to  Dr.  Ennemoser. 
one  of  the  consequences  of  this  very  completeness  is  a  weak 
and  insignificant  development  of  instinct  and  thus  the  healthy, 
wakhig,  conscious  man,  is,  of  all  organisms,  the  least  sensible  to 


32 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


the  impressions  of  this  universal  inter-communication  and  polar- 
ity ;  although,  at  the  same  time,  partaking  of  the  nature  of  the 
plant  and  the  animal,  he  is  subject,  like  the  first,  to  all  manner 
of  atmospheric,  telluric,  and  periodic  influences;  and  frequently 
exhibits,  like  the  second,  peculiar  instinctive  appetites  and  de- 
sires, and,  in  some  individual  organizations,  very  marked  antip- 
athies and  susceptibilities  with  regard  to  certain  objects  and 
influences,  even  when  not  placed  in  any  evident  relation  with 
them. 

According  to  this  theory,  sleep  is  a  retrograde  step  —  a 
retreating  into  a  lower  sphere  ;  in  which  condition,  the  sensu- 
ous functions  being  in  abeyance,  the  instincts  somewhat  resume 
their  sway.  "  In  sleep  and  in  sickness,"  he  says,  "  the  higher 
animals  and  man  fall  in  a  physico-organical  point  of  view,  from 
their  individual  independence,  or  power  of  self-sustainment ; 
and  their  polar  relation,  that  is,  their  relation  to  the  healthy  and 
waking  man,  becomes  changed  from  a  positive  to  a  negative 
one ;  all  men,  in  regard  to  each  other,  as  well  as  all  nature, 
being  the  subjects  of  this  polarity.  It  is  to  be  remembered, 
that  this  theory  of  Dr.  Ennemoser's  was  promulgated  before 
the  discoveries  of  Baron  von  Reichenback  in  magnetism  were 
made  public,  and  the  susceptibility  to  magnetic  influences  in 
the  animal  organism,  which  the  experiments  of  the  latter  go  to 
establish,  is  certainly  in  its  favor ;  but  while  it  pretends  to  ex- 
plain the  condition  of  the  sleepers,  and  may  possibly  be  of  some 
service  in  our  investigations  into  the  mystery  of  dreaming,  it 
leaves  us  as  much  in  the  dark  as  ever,  with  respect  to  the  cause 
of  our  falling  into  this  negative  state;  an  inquiry  in  which  little 
progress  seems  to  have  been  hitherto  made. 

With  respect  to  dreaming,  Dr.  Ennemoser  rejects  the  physi- 
ological theory,  which  maintains,  that  in  sleep,  magnetic  or  oth- 
erwise, the  activity  of  the  brain  is  transferred  to  the  ganglionic 
system,  and  that  the  former  falls  into  a  subordinate  relation. 
"  Dreaming,"  he  says,  "  is  the  gradual  awakening  of  activity  in 
the  organs  of  imagination,  whereby  the  presentation  of  sensuous 
objects  to  the  spirit,  which  had  been  discontinued  in  profound 
sleep,  is  resumed.    Dreaming,"  he  adds,  "  also  arises  from  the 


WAKING  AND  SLEEPING,  ETC. 


33 


secret  activity  of  the  spirit  in  the  innermost  sensuous  organs  of 
the  brain,  busying  the  fancy  with  subjective  sensuous  images, 
the  objective  conscious  day-life  giving  place  to  the  creative 
dominion  of  the  poetical  genius,  to  which  night  becomes  day, 
and  universal  nature  its  theatre  of  action ;  and  thus  the  super- 
sensuous  or  transcendent  nature  of  the  spirit  becomes  more 
manifest  in  dreaming  than  in  the  waking  state.  But,  in  consid- 
ering these  phenomena,  man  must  be  viewed  in  both  his  psychi- 
cal and  physical  relations,  and  as  equally  subject  to  spiritual  ' 
as  to  natural  operations  and  influences ;  since,  during  the  con- 
tinuance of  life,  neither  soul  nor  body  can  act  quite  independ- 
ently of  the  other ;  for,  although  it  be  the  immortal  spirit 
which  perceives,  it  is  through  the  instrumentality  of  the  sensu- 
ous organs  that  it  does  so ;  for  of  absolute  spirit  without  body, 
we  can  form  no  conception. " 

What  is  here  meant  seems  to  be,  that  the  brain  becomes  the 
world  to  the  spirit,  before  the  impressions  from  the  external 
world  do  actually  come  streaming  through  by  means  of  the  ex- 
ternal sensuous  organs.  The  inner  spiritual  light  illumines,  till 
the  outward  physical  light  overpowers  and  extinguishes  it.  But 
in  this  state  the  brain,  which  is  the  storehouse  of  acquired 
knowledge,  is  not  in  a  condition  to  apply  its  acquisitions  effec- 
tively ;  while  the  intuitive  knowledge  of  the  spirit,  if  the  sleep 
be  imperfect,  is  clouded  by  its  interference. 

Other  physiologists,  however,  believe,  from  the  numerous  and 
well-attested  cases  of  the  transference  of  the  senses,  in  disease, 
to  the  pit  of  the  stomach,  that  the  activity  of  the  brain  in  sleep 
is  transferred  to  the  epigastric  region.  The  instances  of  this 
phenomenon,  as  related  by  Dr.  Petetin  and  others,  having  been 
frequently  published,  I  need  not  here  quote.  But,  as  Dr.  Pas- 
savant  observes,  it  is  well  known  that  the  functions  of  the  nerves 
differ  in  some  animals  ;  and  that  one  set  can  supply  the  place 
of  another ;  as  in  those  cases  where  there  is  a  great  suscepti- 
bility to  light,  though  no  eyes  can  be  discovered. 

These  physiologists  believe,  that,  even  during  the  most  pro- 
found sleep,  the  spirit  retains  its  activity,  a  proposition  which, 
indeed,  we  can  not  doubt ;  "  it  wakes,  though  the  senses  sleep, 

2* 


31 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NAT.URE. 


retreating  into  its  infinite  depths,  like  the  sun  at  night;  living 
on  its  spiritual  life  undisturbed,  while  the  body  sinks  into  a  state 
of  vegetative  tranquillity.  Nor  does  it  follow  that  the  soul  is 
unconscious  in  sleep  because  in  waking  we  have  frequently  lost 
all  memory  of  its  consciousness ;  since,  by  the  repose  of  the 
6ensuous  organs,  the  bridge  between  waking  and  sleeping  is 
removed,  and  the  recollections  of  one  state  are  not  carried  into 
the  other." 

It  will  occur  here  to  every  one,  how  often  in  the  instant  of 
waking  we  are  not  only  conscious  that  we  have  been  dreaming, 
but  are  also  conscious  of  the  subject  of  the  dream,  which  we 
try  in  vain  to  grasp,  but  which  eludes  us,  and  is  gone  for  ever 
the  moment  we  have  passed  into  a  state  of  complete  wake- 
fulness. 

Now,  with  respect  to  this  so-called  dreaming  in  profound  sleep, 
it  is  a  thing  no  one  can  well  doubt  who  thoroughly  believes  that 
his  body  is  a  temple  built  for  the  dwelling  of  an  immortal  spirit; 
for  we  can  not  conceive  of  spirit  sleeping,  or  needing  that  res- 
toration which  we  know  to  be  the  condition  of  earthly  organisms. 
If,  therefore,  the  spirit  wakes,  may  we  not  suppose  that  the  more 
it  is  disentangled  from  the  obstructions  of  the  body  the  more 
clear  will  be  its  perceptions ;  and  that,  therefore,  in  the  pro- 
found natural  sleep  of  the  sensuous  organs  we  may  be  in  a  state 
of  clear-seeing.  All  who  have  attended  to  the  subject  are 
aware  that  the  clear  seeing  of  magnetic  patients  depends  on  the 
depth  of  their  sleep  ;  whatever  circumstance,  internal  or  exter- 
nal, tends  to  interrupt  this  profound  repose  of  the  sensuous 
organs,  inevitably  obscures  their  perceptions. 

Again,  with  respect  to  the  not  carrying  with  us  the  recollec- 
tions of  one  state  into  the  other,  should  not  this  lead  us  to  sus- 
pect that  sleeping  and  waking  are  two  different  spheres  of 
existence;  partaking  of  the  nature  of  that  double  life,  of  which 
the  records  of  human  physiology  have  presented  us  with  various 
instances  wherein  a  patient  finds  himself  utterly  divested  of  all 
recollection  of  past  events  and  acquired  knowledge,  and  has  to 
begin  life  and  education  anew,  till  another  transition  takes 
place,  wherein  he  recovers  what  he  had  lost,  while  he  at  the 


DREAMING,  ETC. 


35 


same  time  loses  all  lie  had  lately  gained,  which  he  only  recovers, 
once  more,  by  another  transition,  restoring  to  him  his  lately- 
acquired  knowledge,  but  again  obliterating  his  original  stock, 
thus  alternately  passing  from  one  state  to  the  other,  and  disclo- 
sing a  double  life  —  an  educated  man  in  one  condition,  a  child 
learning  his  alphabet  in  the  next ! 

Where  the  transition  from  one  state  to  another  is  complete, 
memory  is  entirely  lost;  but  there  are  cases  in  which  the 
change,  being  either  gradual  or  modified,  the  recollections  of 
one  life  are  carried  more  or  less  into  the  other.  We  know 
this  to  be  the  case  with  magnetic  sleepers,  as  it  is  with  ordinary 
dreamers ;  and  most  persons  have  met  with  instances  of  the 
dream  of  one  night  being  continued  in  the  next.  Treviranus 
mentions  the  case  of  a  student  who  regularly  began  to  talk  the 
moment  he  fell  asleep,  the  subject  of  his  discourse  being  a 
dream,  which  he  always  took  up  at  the  exact  point  at  which  he 
had  left  it  the  previous  morning.  Of  this  dream  he  had  never 
the  slightest  recollection  in  his  waking  state.  A  daughter  of 
Sir  George  Mackenzie,  who  died  at  an  early  age,  was  endowed 
with  a  remarkable  genius  for  music,  and  was  an  accomplished 
organist.  This  young  lady  dreamed,  during  an  illness,  that  she 
was  at  a  party,  where  she  had  heard  a  new  piece  of  music, 
which  made  so  great  an  impression  on  her  by  its  novelty  and 
beauty,  that,  on  awaking,  she  besought  her  attendants  to  bring 
her  some  paper,  that  she  might  write  it  down  before  she  had 
forgotten  it  —  an  indulgence  which,  apprehensive  of  excitement, 
her  medical  attendant  unfortunately  forbade ;  for,  apart  from 
the  additional  psychological  interest  that  would  have  been  at- 
tached to  the  fact,  the  effects  of  compliance,  judging  from  what 
ensued,  would  probably  have  been  soothing  rather  than  other- 
wise. About  ten  days  afterward,  she  had  a  second  dream, 
wherein  she  again  found  herself  at  a  party,  where  she  descried 
on  the  desk  of  a  pianoforte,  in  a  corner  of  the  room,  an  open 
book,  in  which,  with  astonished  delight,  she  recognised  the 
same  piece  of  music,  which  she  immediately  proceeded  to  play, 
and  then  awoke.  The  piece  was  not  of  a  short  or  fugitive 
character,  but  in  the  style  of  an  overture.    The  question,  of 


36 


THE  NfGHT-Sf  DE  OF  NATURE. 


course,  remains,  as  to  whether  she  was  composing  the  music  in 
her  sleep,  or,  by  an  act  of  clairvoyance,  was  perceiving  some 
that  actually  existed.  Either  is  possible,  for,  although  she 
might  have  been  incapable  of  composing  so  elaborate  a  piece 
in  her  waking  state,  there  are  many  instances  on  record  of 
persons  performing  intellectual  feats  in  dreams,  to  which  they 
were  unequal  when  awake.  A  very  eminent  person  assured 
me  that  he  had  once  composed  some  lines  in  his  sleep  (I  think 
it  was  a  sonnet)  which  far  exceeded  any  of  his  waking  perform- 
ances of  that  description. 

Somewhat  analogous  to  this  sort  of  double  life  is  the  case  of 
the  young  girl  mentioned  by  Dr.  Abercrombie  and  others, 
whose  employment  was  keeping  cattle,  and  who  slept  for  some 
time,  much  to  her  own  annoyance,  in  the  room  adjoining  one 
occupied  by  an  itinerant  musician.  The  man,  who  played  ex- 
ceedingly well,  being  an  enthusiast  in  his  art,  frequently  prac- 
tised the  greater  part  of  the  night,  performing  on  his  violin 
very  complies. ted  and  difficult  compositions;  while  the  girl,  so 
far  from  disc  overing  any  pleasure  in  his  performances,  com- 
plained bitterly  of  being  kept  awake  by  the  noise.  Some  time 
after  this,  she  fell  ill,  and  was  removed  to  the  house  of  a  chari- 
table lady,  who  undertook  the  charge  of  her;  and  here,  by-and- 
by,  the  family  were  amazed  by  frequently  hearing  the  most 
exquisite  music  in  the  night,  which  they  at  length  discovered 
to  proceed  fiom  the  girl.  The  sounds  were  those  of  a  violin, 
and  the  tuning  and  other  preliminary  processes  were  accurately 
imitated.  She  went  through  long  and  elaborate  pieces,  and 
afterward  was  heard  imitating,  in  the  same  way,  the  sounds  of 
a  pianoforte  that  was  in  the  house.  She  also  talked  v*ery  clev- 
erly on  the  subjects  of  religion  and  politics,  and  discussed  with 
great  judgment  the  characters  and  conduct  of  persons,  public 
and  private.  Awake,  she  knew  nothing  of  these  things ;  but 
was,  on  the  contrary,  stupid,  heavy,  and  had  no  taste  whatever 
for  music.  Phrenology  would  probably  interpret  this  phenom- 
enon by  saying  that  the  lower  elements  of  the  cerebral  spinal 
axis,  as  organs  of  sensation,  &c,  &c,  being  asleep,  the  cluster 
of  the  higher  organs  requisite  for  the  above  combinations  were 


DREAMING,  ETC. 


37 


not  only  awake,  but  rendered  more  active  from  the  repose  of  the 
others :  but  to  me  it  appears  that  we  here  see  the  inherent  faculties 
of  the  spirit  manifesting  themselves,  while  the  body  slept.  The 
same  faculties  must  have  existed  when  it  was  in  a  waking  state, 
but  the  impressions  and  manifestations  were  then  dependent  on 
the  activity  and  perfection  of  the  sensuous  organs,  which  seem 
to  have  been  of  an  inferior  order ;  and  consequently,  no  rays 
of  this  in-dwelling  genius  could  pierce  the  coarse  integument 
in  which  it  was  lodged. 

Similar  unexpected  faculties  have  been  not  unfrequently 
manifested  by  the  dying,  and  we  may  conclude  to  a  certain 
degree  from  the  same  cause,  namely,  that  the  incipient  death 
of  the  body  is  leaving  the  spirit  more  unobstructed.  Dr.  Stein- 
bech  mentions  the  case  of  a  clergyman,  who,  being  summoned 
to  administer  the  last  sacraments  to  a  dying  peasant,  found  him, 
to  his  surprise,  praying  aloud  in  Greek  and  Hebrew,  a  mystery 
which  could  be  no  otherwise  explained  than  by  the  circum- 
stance of  his  having,  when  a  child,  frequently  heard  the  then 
minister  of  the  parish  praying  in  those  languages.  He  had, 
however,  never  understood  the  prayers,  nor  indeed  paid  any 
attention  to  them ;  still  less  had  he  been  aware  that  they  lived 
in  his  memory.  It  would  give  much  additional  interest  to  this 
story  had  Dr.  Steinbech  mentioned  how  far  the  man  now,  while 
uttering  the  words,  understood  their  meaning ;  whether  he  was 
aware  of  what  he  was  saying,  or  was  only  repeating  the  words 
by  rote. 

With  regard  to  the  extraordinary  faculty  of  memory  mani- 
fested in  these  and  similar  cases,  I  shall  have  some  observations 
to  make  in  a  subsequent  part  of  this  book. 

Parallel  instances  are  those  of  idiots,  who,  either  in  a  som- 
nambulic state,  or  immediately  previous  to  death,  have  spoken 
as  if  inspired.  At  St.  Jean  de  Maurinne,  in  Savoy,  there  was 
a  dumb  cretin,  who,  having  fallen  into  a  natural  state  of  som- 
nambulism, not  only  was  found  to  speak  with  ease,  but  also  to 
the  purpose ;  a  faculty  which  disappeared,  however,  whenever 
he  awoke.  Dumb  persons  have  likewise  been  known  to  speak 
when  at  the  point  of  death. 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


The  possibility  of  suggesting  dreams  to  some  sleepers  by 
whispering  in  the  ear,  is  a  well-known  fact ;  but  this  can  doubt- 
less only  be  practicable  where  the  sensuous  organs  are  partly 
awake.  Then,  as  with  magnetic  patients  in  a  state  of  incom- 
plete sleep,  we  have  only  revery  and  imagination  in  place  of 
clear-seeing. 

The  next  class  of  dreams  are  those  which  partake  of  the 
nature  of  second  sight,  or  prophecy,  and  of  these  there  are 
various  kinds ;  some  being  plain  and  literal  in  their  premoni- 
tions, others  allegorical  and  obscure ;  while  some  also  regard 
the  most  unimportant,  and  others  the  most  grave  events  of  our 
lives.  A  gentleman  engaged  in  business  in  the  south  of  Scot- 
land, for  example,  dreams  that  on  entering  his  office  in  the 
morning,  he  sees  seated  on  a  certain  stool  a  person  formerly  in 
his  service  as  clerk,  of  whom  he  had  neither  heard  nor  thought 
for  some  time.  He  inquires  the  motive  of  the  visit,  and  is  told 
that  such  and  such  circumstances  having  brought  the  stranger 
to  that  part  of  the  country,  he  could  not  forbear  visiting  his  old 
quarters,  expressing  at  the  same  time  a  wish  to  spend  a  few 
days  in  his  former  occupation,  &c,  &c.  The  gentleman,  being- 
struck  with  the  vividness  of  the  illusion,  relates  his  dream  at 
breakfast,  and,  to  his  surprise,  on  going  to  his  office,  there  sits 
the  man,  and  the  dialogue  that  ensues  is  precisely  that  of  the 
dream  !  I  have  heard  of  numerous  instances  of  this  kind  of 
dream,  where  no  previous  expectation  nor  excitement  of  mind 
could  be  found  to  account  for  them,  and  where  the  fulfilment 
was  too  exact  and  literal,  in  all  particulars,  to  admit  of  their 
being  explained  away  by  the  ready  resource  of  "  an  extraordi- 
nary coincidence."  There  are  also  on  record,  in  both  this 
country  and  others,  many  perfectly  well-authenticated  cases  of 
people  obtaining  prizes  in  the  lottery,  through  having  dreamed 
of  the  fortunate  numbers.  As  many  numbers,  however,  may 
have  been  dreamed  of  that  were  not  drawn  prizes,  we  can 
derive  no  conclusion  from  this  circumstance. 

A  very  remarkable  instance  of  this  kind  of  dreaming  occurred 
a  few  years  since  to  Mr.  A  F  ,  an  eminent  Scotch  ad- 
vocate, while  staying  in  the  neighborhood  of  Loch  Fyne,  who 


DREAMING,  ETC. 


39 


dreamed  one  night  that  he  saw*  a  number  of  people  in  the  street 
following  a  man  to  the  scaffold.  He  discovered  the  features 
of  the  criminal  in  the  cart  distinctly ;  and,  for  some  reason  or 
other,  which  he  could  not  account  for,  felt  an  extraordinary 
interest  in  his  fate  —  insomuch  that  he  joined  the  throng,  arid 
accompanied  him  to  the  place  that  was  to  terminate  his  earthly 
career.  This  interest  was  the  more  unaccountable,  that  the 
man  had  an  exceedingly  unprepossessing  countenance,  but  it 
was  nevertheless  so  vivid  as  to  induce  the  dreamer  to  ascend 
the  scaffold,  and  address  him,  with  a  view  to  enable  him  to 
escape  the  impending  catastrophe.  Suddenly,  however,  while 
he  was  talking  to  him,  the  whole  scene  dissolved  away,  and  the 
sleeper  awoke.  Being  a  good  deal  struck  with  the  lifelike 
reality  of  the  vision,  and  the  impression  made  on  his  mind  by 
the  features  of  this  man,  he  related  the  circumstance  to  his 
friends  at  breakfast,  adding  that  he  should  know  him  anywhere, 
if  he  saw  him.  A  few  jests  being  made  on  the  subject,  the 
tiling  was  forgotten. 

On  the  afternoon  of  the  same  day,  the  advocate  was  informed 
that  two  men  wanted  to  speak  to  him,  and,  on  going  into  the 
hall,  he  was  struck  with  amazement  at  perceiving  that  one  of 
them  was  the  hero  of  his  dream ! 

"We  are  accused  of  a  murder,"  said  they,  "  and  we  wish  to 
consult  you.  Three  of  us  went  out,  last  night,  in  a  boat ;  an 
accident  has  happened  ;  our  comrade  is  drowned,  and  they 
want  to  make  us  accountable  for  him."  The  advocate  then 
put  some  interrogations  to  them,  and  the  result  produced  in 
his  mind  by  their  answers  was  a  conviction  of  their  guilt. 
Probably  the  recollection  of  his  dream  rendered  the  effects  of 
this  conviction  more  palpable ;  for  one  addressing  the  other, 
said  in  Gaelic,  "  We  have  come  to  the  wrong  man  ;  he  is  against 
us." 

"  There  is  a  higher  power  than  I  against  you,"  returned  the 
gentleman ;  "  and  the  only  advice  I  can  give  you  is,  if  you  are 
guilty,  fly  immediately."  Upon  this,  they  went  away  ;  and  the 
next  thing  he  heard  was,  that  they  were  taken  into  custody  on 
suspicion  of  the  murder,. 


40 


THE  NIGHT -  SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


The  account  of  the  affair  was,  that,  as  they  said,  the  three 
had  gone  out  together  on  the  preceding  evening,  and  that  in 
the  morning  the  body  of  one  of  them  had  been  found  on  the 
shore,  with  a  cut  across  his  forehead.  The  father  and  friend 
of  the  victim  had  waited  on  the  banks  of  the  lake  till  the  boat 
came  in,  and  then  demanded  their  companion  ;  of  whom,  how- 
ever, they  professed  themselves  unable  to  give  any  account. 
Upon  this,  the  old  man  led  them  to  his  cottage  for  the  purpose 
of  showing  them  the  body  of  his  son.  One  entered,  and,  at  the 
sight  of  it,  burst  into  a  passion  of  tears ;  the  other  refused  to 
do  so,  saying  his  business  called  him  immediately  home,  and 
went  sulkily  away.    This  last  was  the  man  seen  in  the  dream. 

After  a  fortnight's  incarceration,  the  former  of  these  was  lib- 
erated ;  and  he  then  declared  to  the  advocate  his  intention  of 
bringing  an  action  of  damages  for  false  imprisonment.  He  was 
advised  not  to  do  it.  "Leave  well  alone,"  said  the  lawyer; 
"  and  if  you'll  take  my  advice,  make  off  while  you  can."  The 
man,  however,  refused  to  fly:  he  declared  that  he  really «Jid 
not  know  what  had  occasioned  the  death  of  his  comrade.  The 
latter  had  been  at  one  end  of  the  boat,  and  he  at  the  other ; 
when  he  looked  round,  he  was  gone  ;  but  whether  he  had  fallen 
overboard,  and  cut  his  head  as  he  fell,  or  whether  he  had  been 
struck  and  pushed  into  the  water,  he  did  not  know.  The  advo- 
cate became  finally  satisfied  of  this  man's  innocence  ;  but  the 
authorities,  thinking  it  absurd  to  try  one  and  not  the  other, 

again  laid  hands  on  him  :  and  it  fell  to  Mr.  A  F  to  be 

the  defender  of  both.  The  difficulty  was,  not  to  separate  their 
cases  in  his  pleading ;  for,  however  morally  convinced  of  the 
different  ground  on  which  they  stood,  his  duty,  professionally, 
was  to  obtain  the  acquittal  of  both,  in  which  he  finally  succeeded, 
as  regarded  the  charge  of  murder.  They  were,  therefore,  sen- 
tenced to  two  years'  imprisonment;  and,  so  far  as  the  dream  is 
concerned,  here  ends  the  story.  There  remains,  however,  a 
curious  sequel  to  it. 

A  few  years  afterward,  the  same  gentleman  being  in  a  boat 
on  Loch  Fyne,  in  company  with  Sir  T  D  L  ,  hap- 
pened to  be  mentioning  these  curious  circumstances,  when  one 


DREAMING,  ETC. 


41 


of  the  boatmen  said  that  he  "knew  well  about  those  two  men  ; 
and  that  a  very  strange  thing  had  occurred  in  regard  to  one  of 
them."  This  one,  on  inquiry,  proved  to  be  the  subject  of  the 
dream  ;  and  the  strange  thing  was  this  :  On  being  liberated,  he 
had  quitted  that  part  of  the  country,  and  in  process  of  time  had 
gone  to  Greenock,  and  thence  embarked  in  a  vessel  for  Cork. 
But  the  vessel  seemed  fated  never  to  reach  its  destination ;  one 
misfortune  happened  after  another,  till  at  length  the  sailors  said  : 
"  This  won't  do  ;  there  must  be  a  murderer  on  board  with  us  !" 
As  is  usual,  when  such  a  persuasion  exists,  they  drew  lots  three 
times,  and  each  time  it  fell  on  that  man  !  He  was  consequently 
put  on  shore,  and  the  vessel  went  on  its  way  without  him. 
What  had  become  of  him  afterward  was  not  known. 

A  friend  of  mine,  being  in  London,  dreamed  that  she  saw 
her  little  boy  playing  on  the  terrace  of  her  house  in  Northum- 
berland ;  that  he  fell  and  hurt  his  arm,  and  she  saw  him  lying 
apparently  dead.  The  dream  recurred  two  or  three  times  on 
the  same  night,  and  she  awoke  her  husband,  saying  she  "  feared 
something  must  have  happened  to  Henry."  In  due  course  of 
post,  a  letter  arrived  from  the  governess,  saying  that  she  was 
sorry  to  have  to  communicate  that,  while  playing  on  the  terrace 
that  morning,  Master  Henry  had  fallen  over  a  heap  of  stones, 
and  broken  his  arm  ;  adding  that  he  had  fainted  after  the  acci- 
dent, and  had  lain  for  some  time  insensible.  The  lady  to  whom 
this  dream  occurred  is  not  aware  having  ever  manifested  this 
faculty  before  or  since. 

Mrs.  W          dreamed  that  she  saw  people  ascending  by  a 

ladder  to  the  chamber  of  her  step-son  John ;  wakes,  and  says 
she  is  afraid  he  is  dead,  and  that  there  was  something  odd  in 
her  dream  about  a  watch  and  a  candle.  In  the  morning  a  mes- 
senger is  sent  to  inquire  for  the  gentleman,  and  they  find  peo- 
ple ascending  to  his  chamber-window  by  a  ladder,  the  door  of 
the  room  being  locked.  They  discover  him  dead  on  the  floor, 
with  his  watch  in  his  hand,  and  the  candle  between  his  feet. 
The  same  lady  dreamed  that  she  saw  a  friend  in  great  agony, 
and  that  she  heard  him  say  they  were  tearing  his  flesh  from  his 
bones.    He  was  some  time  afterward  seized  with  inflamma- 


42 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


tion,  lay  as  she  had  seen  him,  and  made  use  of  those  exact 
words. 

A  friend  of  mine  dreamed  lately  that  somebody  said  her 
nephew  must  not  be  bled,  as  it  would  be  dangerous.  The 
young  man  was  quite  well,  and  there  had  been  no  design  of 
bleeding  him  ;  but  on  the  following  morning  he  had  a  tooth 
drawn,  and  an  effusion  of  blood  ensued,  which  lasted  some  days, 
and  caused  a  good  deal  of  uneasiness. 

A  farmer,  in  Worcestershire,  dreamed  that  his  little  boy,  of 
twelve  years  old,  had  fallen  from  the  wagon  and  was  killed. 
The  dream  recurred  three  times  in  one  night;  but,  unwilling 
to  yield  to  superstitious  fears,  he  allowed  the  child  to  accom- 
pany the  wagoner  to  Kidderminster  fair.  The  driver  was  very 
fond  of  the  boy,  and  he  felt  assured  would  take  care  of  him  ; 
but,  having  occasion  to  go  a  little  out  of  the  road  to  leave  a 
parcel,  the  man  bade  the  child  walk  on  with  the  wagon,  and 
he  would  meet  him  at  a  certain  spot.  On  arriving  there,  the 
horses  were  coming  quietly  forward,  but  the  boy  was  not  with 
them;  and  on  retracing  the  road,  he  was  found  dead,  having 
apparently  fallen  from  the  shafts,  and  been  crushed  by  the 
wheels. 

A  gentleman,  who  resided  near  one  of  the  Scottish  lakes, 
dreamed  that  he  saw  a  number  of  persons  surrounding  a  body, 
which  had  just  been  drawn  out  of  the  water.  On  approaching 
the  spot,  he  perceives  that  it  is  himself,  and  the  assistants  are 
his  own  friends  and  retainers.  Alarmed  at  the  lifelike  reality 
of  the  vision,  he  resolved  to  elude  the  threatened  destiny  by 
never  venturing  on  the  lake  again.  On  one  occasion,  however, 
it  became  quite  indispensable  that  he  should  do  so ;  and,  as  the 
day  was  quite  calm,  he  yielded  to  the  necessity,  on  condition 
that  he  should  be  put  ashore  at  once  on  the  opposite  side,  while 
the  rest  of  the  party  proceeded  to  their  destinations,  where  he 
would  meet  them.  This  was  accordingly  done  :  the  boat 
skimmed  gayly  over  the  smooth  waters,  and  arrived  safely  at 
the  rendezvous,  the  gentlemen  laughing  at  the  superstition  of 
their  companion,  while  he  stood  smiling  on  the  bank  to  receive 
them     But,  alas  1  the  fates  were  inexorable  :  the  little  prom- 


DREAMING,  ETC. 


43 


ontory  that  supported  him  had  been  undermined  by  the  water; 
it  gave  way  beneath  his  feet,  and  life  was  extinct  before  he 
could  be  rescued.  This  circumstance  was  related  to  me  by  a 
friend  of  the  family. 

Mr.  S  was  the  son  of  an  Irish  bishop,  who  set  somewhat 

more  value  on  the  things  of  this  world  than  became  his  function. 
He  had  always  told  his  son  that  there  was  but  one  thing  he 
could  not  forgive,  and  that  was,  a  bad  marriage  —  meaning,  by 
a  bad  marriage,  a  poor  one.    As  cautions  of  this  sort  do  not,  by 

any  means,  prevent  young  people  falling  in  love,  Mr.  S  

fixed  his  affections  on  Lady  O  ,  a  fair  young  widow,  with- 
out any  fortune ;  and,  aware  that  it  would  be  useless  to  apply 
for  his  father's  consent,  he  married  her  without  asking  it. 
They  were  consequently  exceedingly  poor;  and,  indeed,  nearly 
all  they  had  to  live  on  was  a  small  sinecure  of  forty  pounds  per 
annum,  which  Dean  Swift  procured  for  him.    While  in  this 

situation,  Mr.  S          dreamed  one  night  that  he  was  in  the 

cathedral  in  which  he  had  formerly  been  accustomed  to  attend 
service  ;  that  he  saw  a  stranger,  habited  as  a  bishop,  occupying 
his  father's  throne  ;  and  that,  on  applying  to  the  verger  for  an 
explanation,  the  man  said  that  the  bishop  was  dead,  and  that 
he  had  expired  just  as  he  was  adding  a  codicil  to  his  will  in  his 
son's  favor.    The  impression  made  by  the  dream  was  so  strong, 

that  Mr.  S  felt  that  he  should  have  no  repose  till  he  had 

obtained  news  from  home  ;  and  as  the  most  speedy  way  of 
doing  so  was  to  go  there  himself,  he  started  on  horseback,  much 
against  the  advice  of  his  wife,  who  attached  no  importance  what- 
ever to  the  circumstance.  He  had  scarcely  accomplished  half 
his  journey,  when  he  met  a  courier,  bearing  the  intelligence  of 
his  father's  death  ;  and  when  he  reached  home,  he  found  that 
there  was  a  codicil  attached  to  the  will,  of  the  greatest  impor- 
tance to  his  own  future  prospects  ;  but  the  old  gentleman  had 
expired,  with  the  pen  in  his  hand,  just  as  he  was  about  to 
sign  it  ! 

In  this  unhappy  position,  reduced  to  hopeless  indigence,  the 
friends  of  the  young  man  proposed  that  he  should  present  him- 
self at  the  vice-regal  palace,  on  the  next  levee  day,  in  hopes 


44 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


that  some  interest  might  be  excited  in  his  favor ;  to  which,  with 
reluctance,  he  consented.  As  he  was  ascending  the  stairs,  he 
was  met  by  a  gentleman  whose  dress  indicated  that  he  belonged 
to  the  church. 

"  Good  Heavens  !"  said  he,  to  the  friend  who  accompanied 
him,  "  who  is  that  V 

"  That  is  Mr.  ,  of  so  and  so." 

"  Then  he  will  be  bishop  of  L  !"  returned  Mr.  S  ; 

"for  that  is  the  man  I  saw  occupying  my  father's  throne." 

"  Impossible  !"  replied  the  other  ;  "  he  has  no  interest  what- 
ever, and  has  no  more  chance  of  being  a  bishop  than  I  have." 

"You  will  see,"  replied  Mr.  S  ;  "I  am  certain  he  will." 

They  had  made  their  obeisance  above,  and  were  returning, 
when  there  was  a  great  cry  without,  and  everybody  rushed  to 
the  doors  and  windows  to  inquire  what  had  happened.  The 
horses  attached  to  the  carriage  of  a  young  nobleman  had  be- 
come restiff,  and  were  endangering  the  life  of  their  master, 

when  Mr.  rushed  forward,  and,  at  the  peril  of  his  own, 

seized  their  heads,  and  afforded  Lord  C  time  to  descend, 

before  they  broke  through  all  restraint,  and  dashed  away. 
Through  the  interest  of  this  nobleman  and  his  friends,  to  whom 

Mr.   had  been  previously  quite  unknown  he  obtained  the 

see  of  L  .     These  circumstances  were  related  to  me  by  a 

member  of  the  family. 

It  would  be  tedious  to  relate  all  the  instances  of  this  sort  of 
dreaming  which  have  come  to  my  knowledge,  but  were  they 
even  much  more  rare  than  they  are,  and  were  there  none  of  a 
graver  and  more  mysterious  kind,  it  might  certainly  occasion 
some  surprise  that  they  should  have  excited  so  little  attention. 
When  stories  of  this  sort  are  narrated,  they  are  listened  to  with 
wonder  for  the  moment,  and  then  forgotten,  and  few  people  re- 
flect on  the,  deep  significance  of  the  facts,  or  the  important 
consequences  to  us  involved  in  the  question,  of  how,  with  our 
limited  faculties,  which  can  not  foretell  the  events  of  the  next 
moment,  we  should  suddenly  become  prophets  and  seers. 

The  following  dream,  as  it  regards  the  fate  of  a  very  inter- 
esting person,  and  is,  I  believe,  very  little  known,  I  will  relate, 


DREAMING,  ETC. 


45 


though  the  story  is  of  somewhat  an  old  date  : — Major  Andre", 
the  circumstances  of  whose  lamented  death  are  too  well  known 
to  make  it  necessary  for  me  to  detail  them  here,  was  a  friend 
of  Miss  Seward's,  and,  previously  to  his  embarkation  for  Amer- 
ica, he  made  a  journey  into  Derbyshire,  to  pay  her  a  visit,  and 
it  was  arranged  that  they  should  ride  over  to  see  the  wonders 
of  the  Peak,  and  introduce  Andre  to  Newton,  her  minstrel,  as 
she  called  him,  and  to  Mr.  Cunningham,  the  curate,  who  was 
also  a  poet. 

While  these  two  gentlemen  were  awaiting  the  arrival  of  their 
guests,  of  whose  intentions  they  had  been  apprised,  Mr.  Cun- 
ningham mentioned  to  Newton,  that  on  the  preceding  night, 
he  had  had  a  very  extraordinary  dream,  which  he  could  not 
get  out  of  his  head.  He  had  fancied  himself  in  a  forest ;  the 
place  was  strange  to  him  ;  and,  while  looking  about,  he  perceived 
a  horseman  approaching  at  great  speed,  who  had  scarcely  reached 
the  spot  where  the  dreamer  stood,  when  three  men  rushed  out 
of  the  thicket,  and,  seizing  his  bridle,  hurried  him  away,  after 
closely  searching  his  person.  The  countenance  of  the  stranger 
being  very  interesting,  the  sympathy  felt  by  the  sleeper  for  his 
apparent  misfortune  awoke  him ;  but  he  presently  fell  asleep 
again,  and  dreamed  that  he  was  standing  near  a  great  city, 
among  thousands  of  people,  and  that  he  saw  the  same  person 
he  had  seen  seized  in  the  wood  brought  out  and  suspended  to 
a  gallows.  When  Andre  and  Miss  Seward  arrived,  he  was 
horror-struck  to  perceive  that  his  new  acquaintance  was  the 
antitype  of  the  man  in  the  dream. 

Mr.  C  ,  a  friend  of  mine,  told  me  the  other  day,  that  he 

had  dreamed  he  had  gone  to  see  a  lady  of  his  acquaintance, 
and  that  she  had  presented  him  with  a  purse.  In  the  morning 
he  mentioned  the  circumstance  to  his  wife,  adding  that  he  won- 
dered what  should  have  made  him  dream  of  a  person  he  had 
not  been  in  any  way  led  to  think  of;  and,  above  all,  that  she 
should  give  him  a  purse.    On  that  same  day,  a  letter  arrived 

from  that  lady  to  Mrs.  C  ,  containing  a  purse,  of  which  she 

begged  her  acceptance.  Here  was  the  imperfect  foreshadow- 
ing of  the  fact,  probably  from  unsound  sleep. 


4G 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


Another  friend  lately  dreamed,  one  Thursday  night,  that  he 
saw  an  acquaintance  of  his  thrown  from  his  horse  ;  and  that  he 
was  lying  on  the  ground  with  the  blood  streaming  from  his  face, 
which  was  much  cut.  He  mentioned  his  dream  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  being  an  entire  disbeliever  in  such  phenomena,  he 
could  not  account  for  the  impression  made  on  his  mind.  This 
was  so  strong,  that  on  Saturday,  he  could  not  forbear  calling  at 
his  friend's  house  ;  who,  he  was  told,  was  in  bed,  having  been 
thrown  from  his  horse  on  the  previous  day,  and  much  injured 
about  the  face. 

Relations  of  this  description  having  been  more  or  less  familiar 
to  the  world  in  all  times  and  places,  and  the  recurrence  of  the 
phenomena  too  frequent  to  admit  of  their  reality  being  dispu- 
ted, various  theories  were  promulgated  to  account  for  them  ; 
and  indeed,  there  scarcely  seems  to  be  a  philosopher  or  histo- 
rian among  the  Greeks  and  Romans  who  does  not  make  some 
allusion  to  this  ill-understood  department  of  nature ;  while, 
among  the  eastern  nations,  the  faith  in  such  mysterious  revela- 
tions remains  even  yet  undiminished.  Spirits,  good  and  evil, 
or  the  divinities  of  the  heathen  mythology,  were  generally  called 
in  to  remove  the  difficulty  ;  though  some  philosophers,  reject- 
ing this  supernatural  interference,  sought  the  explanation  in 
merely  physical  causes. 

In  the  druidical  rites  of  the  northern  nations,  women  bore 
a  considerable  part :  there  were  priestesses,  who  gave  forth 
oracles  and  prophecies,  much  after  the  manner  of  the  Python- 
esses of  the  Grecian  temples,  and  no  doubt  drawing  their  inspi- 
ration from  the  same  sources  ;  namely,  from  the  influences  of 
magnetism,  and  from  narcotics.  When  the  pure  rites  of  Chris- 
tianity seperseded  the  heathen  forms  of  worship,  tradition  kept 
alive  the  memory  of  these  vaticinations,  together  with  some  of 
the  arcana  of  the  druidical  groves  ;  and  hence,  in  the  middle 
ages,  arose  the  race  of  so-called  witches  and  sorcerers,  who 
were  partly  impostors,  and  partly  self-deluded.  Nobody  thought 
of  seeking  the  explanation  of  the  facts  they  witnessed  in  natu- 
ral causes  ;  what  had  formerly  been  attributed  to  the  influence 
of  the  gods,  was  now  attributed  to  the  influence  of  the  devil ; 


WITCHES,  ETC. 


and  a  league  with  Satan  was  the  universal  solvent  of  all  diffi- 
culties. 

Persecution  followed,  of  course ;  and  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren, were  offered  up  to  the  demon  of  superstition,  till  the  can- 
did and  rational  part  of  mankind,  taking  fright  at  the  holocaust, 
began  to  put  in  their  protest,  and  lead  out  a  reaction,  which, 
like  all  reactions,  ran  right  into  the  opposite  extreme.  From 
believing  everything,  they  ceased  to  believe  anything  ;  and,  af- 
ter swallowing  unhesitatingly  the  most  monstrous  absurdities, 
they  relieved  themselves  of  the  whole  difficulty,  by  denying  the 
plainest  facts  ;  while  what  it  was  found  impossible  to  deny,  was 
referred  to  imagination  —  that  most  abused  word,  which  ex- 
plained nothing,  but  left  the  matter  as  obscure  as  it  was  before. 
Man's  spiritual  nature  was  forgotten  ;  and  what  the  senses  could 
not  apprehend,  nor  the  understanding  account  for,  was  pro- 
nounced to  be  impossible.  Thank  God  !  we  have  lived  through 
that  age,  and  in  spite  of  the  struggles  of  the  materialistic  school, 
we  are  fast  advancing  to  a  better.  The  traditions  of  the  saints 
who  suffered  the  most  appalling  tortures,  and  slept  or  smiled 
the  while,  can  scarcely  be  rejected  now,  when  we  are  daily 
hearing  of  people  undergoing  frightful  operations,  either  in  a 
state  of  insensibility,  or  while  they  believe  themselves  revelling 
in  delight ;  nor  can  the  psychological  intimations  which  these 
facts  offer,  be  much  longer  overlooked.  One  revelation  must 
lead  to  another ;  and  the  wise  men  of  the  world  will,  ere  lono-, 
be  obliged  to  give  in  their  adherence  to  Shakspere's  much  quo- 
ted axiom,  and  confess  that  "  there  are  more  things  in  heaven 
and  earth  than  are  dreamt  of  in  their  philosophy." 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

ALLEGORICAL  DREAMS,  PRESENTIMENT,  ETC. 

It  has  been  the  opinion  of  many  philosophers,  both  ancient 
and  modern,  that  in  the  original  state  of  man,  as  he  came  forth 
from  the  hands  of  his  Creator,  that  knowledge  which  is  now 
acquired  by  pains  and  labor  was  intuitive.  His  material  body 
was  given  him  for  the  purpose  of  placing  him  in  relation  with 
the  material  world,  and  his  sensuous  organs  for  the  perception 
of  material  objects,  but  his  soul  was  a  mirror  of  the  universe, 
in  which  everything  was  reflected,  and,  probably,  is  so  still,  but 
that  the  spirit  is  no  longer  in  a  condition  to  perceive  it.  De- 
graded in  his  nature,  and  distracted  by  the  multiplicity  of  the 
objects  and  interests  that  surround  him,  man  has  lost  his  faculty 
of  spiritual  seeing;  but  in  sleep,  when  the  body  is  in  a  state  of 
passivity,  and  external  objects  are  excluded  from  us  by  the 
shutting  up  of  the  senses  through  which  we  perceive  them,  the 
spirit,  to  a  certain  degree  freed  from  its  impediments,  may 
enjoy  somewhat  of  its  original  privilege.  "  The  soul,  which  is 
designed  as  the  mirror  of  a  superior  spiritual  order"  (to  which 
it  belongs),  still  receives  in  dreams,  some  rays  from  above,  and 
enjoys  a  foretaste  of  its  future  condition ;  and,  whatever  inter- 
pretation may  be  put  upon  the  history  of  the  Fall,  few  will 
doubt  that,  before  it,  man  must  have  stood  in  a  much  more  inti- 
mate relation  to  his  Creator  than  he  has  done  since.  If  we 
admit  this,  and  that,  for  the  above-hinted  reasons,  the  soul  in 
sleep  may  be  able  to  exercise  somewhat  of  its  original  endow- 
ment, the  possibility  of  what  is  called  prophetic  dreaming  may 
be  better  understood. 

"  Seeing  in  dreams,"  says  Ennemoser,  "  is  a  self-illumining 
of  things,  places,  and  times;"  for  relations  of  time  and  space 


ALLEGORICAL  DREAMS,  ETC. 


43 


form  no  obstruction  to  the  dreamer :  things,  near  and  far,  are 
alike  seen  in  the  mirror  of  the  soul,  according  to  the  connection 
in  which  they  stand  to  each  other  ;  and,  as  the  future  is  but  an 
unfolding  of  the  present,  as  the  present  is  of  the  past,  one  being 
necessarily  involved  in  the  other,  it  is  not  more  difficult  to  the 
untrammelled  spirit  to  see  what  is  to  happen,  than  what  has 
already  happened.  Under  what  peculiar  circumstances  it  is 
that  the  body  and  soul  fall  into  this  particular  relative  condition, 
we  do  not  know,  but  that  certain  families  and  constitutions  are 
more  prone  to  these  conditions  than  others,  all  experience  goes 
to  establish.  According  to  the  theory  of  Dr.  Ennemoser,  we 
should  conclude  that  they  are  more  susceptible  to  magnetic  in- 
fluences, and  that  the  body  falls  into  a  more  complete  state  of 
negative  polarity. 

In  the  histories  of  the  Old  Testament  we  constantly  find 
instances  of  prophetic  dreaming,  and  the  voice  of  God  was 
chiefly  heard  by  the  prophets  in  sleep  ;  seeming  to  establish  that 
man  is  in  that  state  more  susceptible  of  spiritual  communion, 
although  the  being  thus  made  the  special  organ  of  the  Divine 
will,  is  altogether  a  different  thing  from  the  mere  disfranchise- 
ment of  the  embodied  spirit  in  ordinary  cases  of  clear  seeing 
in  sleep.  Profane  history,  also,  furnishes  us  with  various  in- 
stances of  prophetic  dreaming,  which  it  is  unnecessary  for  me 
to  refer  to  here.  But  there  is  one  thing  very  worthy  of  remark, 
namely,  that  the  allegorical  character  of  many  of  the  dreams 
recorded  in  the  Old  Testament,  occasionally  pervades  those  of 
the  present  day.  I  have  heard  of  several  of  this  nature,  and 
Oberlin,  the  good  pastor  of  Ban  de  la  Roche,  was  so  subject  to 
them,  that  he  fancied  he  had  acquired  the  art  of  interpreting 
the  symbols.  This  characteristic  of  dreaming  is  in  strict  con- 
formity with  the  language  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  of  the 
most  ancient  nations.  Poets  and  prophets,  heathen  and  Chris- 
tian, alike  express  themselves  symbolically,  and,  if  we  believe 
that  this  language  prevailed  in  the  early  ages  of  the  world,  be- 
fore the  external  and  intellectual  life  had  predominated  over 
the  instinctive  and  emotional,  we  must  conclude  it  to  be  the 
natural  language  of  man,  who  must,  therefore,  have  been  gifted 

3 


50 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


with  a  conform  able  faculty  of  comprehending  these  hieroglyph- 
ics ;  and  hence  it  arose  that  the  interpreting  of  dreams  became 
a  legitimate  art.  Long  after  these  instinctive  faculties  were 
lost,  or  rather  obscured,  by  the  turmoil  and  distractions  of  sen- 
suous life,  the  memories  and  traditions  of  them  remained,  and 
hence  the  superstructure  of  jugglery  and  imposture  that  ensued, 
of  which  the  gipsies  form  a  signal  example,  in  whom,  however, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  some  occasional  gleams  of  this  origi- 
nal endowment  may  still  be  found,  as  is  the  case,  though  more 
rarely,  in  individuals  of  all  races  and  conditions.  The  whole 
of  nature  is  one  large  book  of  symbols,  which,  because  we  have 
lost  the  key  to  it,  we  can  not  decipher.  "  To  the  first  man," 
says  Hamann,  "whatever  his  ear  heard,  his  eye  saw,  or  his  hand 
touched,  was  a  living  word ;  with  this  word  in  his  heart  and  in 
his  mouth,  the  formation  of  language  was  easy.  Man  saw  things 
in  their  essence  and  properties,  and  named  them  accordingly. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  heathen  forms  of  worship 
and  systems  of  religion  were  but  the  external  symbols  of  some 
deep  meanings,  and  not  the  idle  fables  that  they  have  been  too 
frequently  considered  ;  and  it  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  the  the- 
ology which  satisfied  so  many  great  minds  had  no  better  found- 
ation than  a  child's  fairy  tale. 

A  maid-servant,  who  resided  many  years  in  a  distinguished 
family  in  Edinburgh,  was  repeatedly  warned  of  the  approaching 
death  of  certain  members  of  that  family,  by  dreaming  that  one 
of  the  walls  of  the  house  had  fallen.  Shortly  before  the  head 
of  the  family  sickened  and  died,  she  said  she  had  dreamed  that 
the  main  wall  had  fallen. 

A  singular  circumstance  which  occurred  in  this  same  family, 
from  a  member  of  which  I  heard  it,  is  mentioned  by  Dr.  Aber- 
crombie.  On  this  occasion  the  dream  was  not  only  prophetic, 
but  the  symbol  was  actually  translated  into  fact. 

One  of  the  sons  being  indisposed  with  a  sore  throat,  a  sister 
dreamed  that  a  watch,  of  considerable  value,  which  she  had  bor- 
rowed from  a  friend,  had  stopped ;  that  she  had  awakened  an- 
other sister  and  mentioned  the  circumstance,  who  answered 
that  "  something  much  worse  had  happened,  for  Charles's  breath 


ALLEGORICAL  DREAMS,  ETC. 


51 


had  stopped."  She  then  awoke,  in  extreme  alarm,  and  men- 
tioned the  dream  to  her  sister,  who,  to  tranquillize  her  mind, 
arose  and  went  to  the  brother's  room,  where  she  found  him 
asleep  and  the  watch  going.  The  next  night  the  same  dream 
recurred,  and  the  brother  was  again  found  asleep  and  the  watch 
going.  On  the  following  morning,  however,  this  lady  was  wri- 
ting a  note  in  the  drawing-room,  with  the  watch  beside  her, 
when,  on  taking  it  up,  she  perceived  it  had  stopped ;  and  she 
was  just  on  the  point  of  calling  her  sister  to  mention  the  cir- 
cumstance, when  she  heard  a  scream  from. her  brother's  room, 
and  the  sister  rushed  in  with  the  tidings  that  he  had  just  ex- 
pired. The  malady  had  not  been  thought  serious ;  but  a  sud- 
den fit  of  suffocation  had  unexpectedly  proved  fatal. 

This  case,  which  is  established  beyond  all  controversy,  is 
extremely  curious  in  many  points  of  view ;  the  acting  out  of 
the  symbol,  especially.  Symbolical  events  of  this  description 
have  been  often  related,  and  as  often  laughed  at.  It  is  easy  to 
laugh  at  what  we  do  not  understand  ;  and  it  gives  us  the  advan- 
tage of  making  the  timid  narrator  ashamed  of  his  fact,  so  that 
if  he  do  not  wholly  suppress  it,  he  at  least  insures  himself  by 
laughing,  too,  the  next  time  he  relates  it.  It  is  said  that 
Goethe's  clock  stopped  the  moment  he  died  ;  and  I  have  heard 
repeated  instances  of  this  strange  kind  of  synchronism,  or  mag- 
netism, if  it  be  by  magnetism  that  we  are  to  account  for  the 
mystery.  One  was  told  me  very  lately  by  a  gentleman  to 
whom  the  circumstances  occurred. 

On  the  16th  of  August,  1769,  Frederick  II.,  of  Prussia,  is 
said  to  have  dreamed  that  a  star  fell  from  heaven  and  occasioned 
such  an  extraordinary  glare  that  he  could  with  great  difficulty 
find  his  way  through  it.  He  mentioned  the  dream  to  his 
attendants,  and  it  was  afterward  observed  that  it  was  on  that 
day  Napoleon  was  born. 

A  lady,  not  long  since,  related  to  me  the  following  circum- 
stance :  Her  mother,  who  was  at  the  time  residing  in  Edin- 
burgh, in  a  house  one  side  of  which  looked  into  a  wynd,  while 
the  door  was  in  the  High  street,  dreamed  that,  it  being  Sunday 
morning,  she  had  heard  a  sound  which  attracted  her  to  the 


52 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


window  ;  and,  while  looking  out,  had  dropped  a  ring  from  her 
finger  into  the  wynd  below ;  that  she  had,  thereupon,  gone 
down  in  her  night-clothes  to  seek  it,  but  when  she  reached  the 
spot  it  was  not  to  be  found.  Returning,  extremely  vexed  at 
her  loss,  as  she  re-entered  her  own  door  she  met  a  respectable 
looking  young  man,  carrying  some  loaves  of  bread.  On  ex- 
pressing her  astonishment  at  finding  a  stranger  there  at  so 
unseasonable  an  hour,  he  answered  by  expressing  his  at  seeing 
her  in  such  a  situation.  She  said  she  had  dropped  her  ring, 
and  had  been  round  the  corner  to  seek  it ;  whereupon,  to  her 
delighted  surprise,  he  presented  her  with  her  lost  treasure. 
Some  months  afterward,  being  at  a  party,  she  recognized  the 
young  man  seen  in  her  dream,  and  learned  that  he  was  a 
baker.  He  took  no  particular  notice  of  her  on  that  occasion ; 
and,  I  think,  two  years  elapsed  before  she  met  him  again.  This 
second  meeting,  however,  led  to  an  acquaintance,  which  termi- 
nated in  marriage. 

Here  the  ring  and  the  bread  are  curiously  emblematic  of  the 
marriage,  and  the  occupation  of  the  future  husband. 

Miss  L  ,  residing  at  Dalkeith,  dreamed  that  her  brother, 

who  was  ill,  call  her  to  his  bedside  and  gave  her  a  letter,  which 

he  desired  her  to  carry  to  their  aunt,  Mrs.  H  ,  with  the 

request  that  she  would  "deliver  it  to  John."  (John  was  another 

brother,  who  had  died  previously,  and  Mrs.  H  was  at  the 

time  ill.)    He  added  that  "  he  himself  was  going  there  also,  but 

that  Mrs.  H  would  be  there  before  him."  Accordingly, 

Miss  L  went,  in  her  dream,  with  the  letter  to  Mrs.  H  , 

whom  she  found  dressed  in  white,  and  looking  quite  radiant  and 
happy.  She  took  the  letter,  saying  she  was  going  there  directly, 
and  would  deliver  it. 

On  the  following  morning  Miss  L  learned  that  her  aunt 

had  died  in  the  night.  The  brother  died  some  little  time 
afterward. 

A  gentleman  who  had  been  a  short  time  visiting  Edinburgh, 
was  troubled  with  a  cough,  which,  though  it  occasioned  him  no 
alarm,  he  resolved  to  go  home  to  nurse.  On  the  first  night  of 
his  arrival  he  dreamed  that  one  half  of  the  house  was  blown 


ALLEGORICAL  DREAMS. 


53 


away.  His  bailiff,  who  resided  at  a  distance,  dreamed  the  same 
dream  on  the  same  night.  The  gentleman  died  within  a  few 
weeks. 

"  This  symbolical  language,  which  the  Deity  appears  to  have 
used"  (witness  Peter's  dream,  Acts  ii.,  and  others)  "  in  all  his 
revelations  to  man,  is  in  the  highest  degree,  what  poetry  is  in  a 
lower,  and  the  language  of  dreams,  in  the  lowest,  namely,  the 
original  natural  language  of  man  ;  and  we  may  fairly  ask 
whether  this  language,  which  here  plays  an  inferior  part,  be 
not,  possibly,  the  proper  language  of  a  higher  sphere,  while  we, 
who  vainly  think  ourselves  awake,  are,  in  reality,  buried  in  a 
deep,  deep  sleep,  in  which,  like  dreamers  who  imperfectly  hear 
the  voices  of  those  around  them,  we  occasionally  apprehend, 
though  obscurely,  a  few  words  of  this  divine  tongue."  (Vide 
Schubert.) 

This  subject  of  sleeping  and  waking  is  a  very  curious  one, 
and  might  give  rise  to .  strange  questionings.  In  the  case  of 
those  patients  above  mentioned,  who  seem  to  have  two  different 
spheres  of  existence,  who  shall  say  which  is  the  waking  one,  or 
whether  either  of  them  be  so  1  The  speculations  of  Mr.  Dove 
on  this  subject  merited  more  attention,  I  think,  than  they  met 
with  when  he  lectured  in  Edinburgh.  He  maintained  that,  long 
before  he  had  paid  any  attention  to  magnetism,  he  had  arrived 
at  the  conclusion  that  there  are  as  many  states  or  conditions  of 
mind  beyond  sleep  as  there  are  on  this  side  of  it ;  passing 
through  the  different  stages  of  dreaming,  revery,  contemplation, 
&c,  up  to  perfect  vigilance.  However  this  be,  in  this  world  of 
appearance,  where  we  see  nothing  as  it  is,  and  where,  both  as 
regards  our  moral  and  physical  relations,  we  live  in  a  state  of 
continual  delusion,  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  pronounce  on  this 
question.  It  is  a  common  remark,  that  some  people  seem  to 
live  in  a  dream,  and  never  to  be  quite  awake ;  and  the  most 
cursory  observer  can  not  fail  to  have  been  struck  with  exam- 
ples of  persons  in  this  condition,  especially  in  the  aged. 

With  respect  to  this  allegorical  language,  Ennemoser  ob- 
serves, that,  "  since  no  dreamer  learns  it  of  another,  and  still 
less  from  those  who  are  awake,  it  must  be  natural  to  all  men." 


54 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


How  different  too,  is  its  comprehensiveness  and  rapidity,  to  our 
ordinary  language!  We  are  accustomed,  and  with  justice,  to 
wonder  at  the  admirable  mechanism  by  which,  without  fatigue 
or  exertion,  we  communicate  with  our  fellow-beings ;  but  how 
6low  and  ineffectual  is  human  speech  compared  to  this  spiritual 
picture-language,  where  a  whole  history  is  understood  at  a 
glance!  and  scenes*hat  seem  to  occupy  days  and  weeks,  are 
acted  out  in  ten  minutes.  It  is  remarkable  that  this  hieroglyphic 
language  appears  to  be  the  same  among  all  people ;  and  that 
the  dream-interpreters  of  all  countries  construe  the  signs  alike. 
Thus,  the  dreaming  of  deep  water  denotes  trouble,  and  pearls 
are  a  sign  of  tears. 

I  have  heard  of  a  lady  who,  whenever  a  misfortune  .was 
impending,  dreamed  that  she  saw  a  large  fish.  One  night  she 
dreamed  that  this  fish  had  bitten  two  of  her  little  boy's  fingers. 
Immediately  afterward  a  schoolfellow  of  the  child's  injured 
those  two  very  fingers  by  striking  him  with  a  hatchet ;  and  I 
have  met  with  several  persons  who  have  learned,  by  experi- 
ence, to  consider  one  particular  dream  as  the  certain  prognostic 
of  misfortune. 

A  lady  who  had  left  the  West  Indies  when  six  years  old, 
came  one  night,  fourteen  years  afterward,  to  her  sister's  bed- 
side, and  said,  "  I  know  uncle  is  dead.  I  have  dreamed  that  I 
saw  a  number  of  slaves  in  the  large  store-room  at  Barbadoes, 
with  long  brooms,  sweeping  down  immense  cobwebs.  I  com- 
plained to  my  aunt,  and  she  covered  her  face  and  said,  1  Yes, 
he  is  no  sooner  gone  than  they  disobey  him.' "  It  was  after- 
ward ascertained  that  Mr.  P  had  died  on  that  night,  and 

that  he  had  never  permitted  the  cobwebs  in  this  room  to  be 
swept  away,  of  which,  however,  the  lady  assures  me  she  knew 
nothing  ;  nor  could  she  or  her  friends  conceive  what  was  meant 
by  the  symbol  of  the  cobwebs,  till  they  received  the  explana- 
tion subsequently  from  a  member  of  the  family. 

The  following  very  curious  allegorical  dream  I  give,  not  in 
the  words  of  the  dreamer,  but  in  those  of  her  son,  who  bears  a 
name  destined,  I  trust,  to  a  long  immortality 


DREAMS  AND  PRESENTIMENTS. 


55 


"Wooer's  Abbey-Cottage,  Dunfermiliine-iit-the-Woods,  ) 
"Monday  morning,  3 1st  May,  1847.  $ 

"  Dear  Mrs.  Crowe  :  That  dream  of  my  mother's  was  as 
follows :  She  stood  in  a  long,  dark,  empty  gallery :  on  her  on 
side  was  my  father,  and  on  the  other  my  eldest  sister  Amelia ; 
then  myself,  and  the  rest  of  the  family,  according  to  their  ages. 
At  the  foot  of  the  hall  stood  my  youngest  sister  Alexes,  and 
above  her  my  sister  Catherine  —  a  creature,  by-the-way,  in 
person  and  mind,  more  like  an  angel  of  heaven  than  an  inhab- 
itant of  earth.  We  all  stood  silent  and  motionless.  At  last  it 
entered  —  the  unimagined  something,  that,  casting  its  grim 
shadow  before,  had  enveloped  all  the  trivialities  of  the  prece- 
ding dream  in  the  stifling  atmosphere  of  terror.  It  entered, 
stealthily  descending  the  three  steps  that  led  from  the  entrance 
down  into  the  chamber  of  horror :  and  my  mother  felt  it  was 
Death  !  He  was  dwarfish,  bent,  and  shrivelled.  He  carried 
on  his  shoulder  a  heavy  axe ;  and  had  come,  she  thought,  to 
destroy  *  all  her  little  ones  at  one  fell  swoop.'  On  the  entrance 
of  the  shape,  my  sister  Alexes  leaped  out  of  the  rank,  interpo- 
sing herself  between  him  and  my  mother.  He  raised  his  axe 
and  aimed  a  blow  at  Catherine — a  blow  which,  to  her  horror, 
my  mother  could  not  intercept,  though  she  had  snatched  up  a 
three-legged  stool,  the  sole  furniture  of  the  apartment,  for  that 
purpose.  She  could  not,  she  felt,  fling  the  stool  at  the  figure 
without  destroying  Alexes,  who  kept  shooting  out  and  in  be- 
tween her  and  the  ghastly  thing.  She  tried  in  vain  to  scream ; 
she  besought  my  father,  in  agony,  to  avert  the  impending  stroke  ; 
but  he  did  not  hear,  or  did  not  heed  her,  and  stood  motionless, 
as  in  a  trance.  Down  came  the  axe,  and  poor  Catherine  fell 
in  her  blood,  cloven  to  ' the  white  halse  bane.'  Again  the  axe 
was  lifted,  by  the  inexorable  shadow,  over  the  head  of  my 
brother,  who  stood  next  in  the  line.  Alexes  had  somewhere 
disappeared  behind  the  ghastly  visitant ;  and,  with  a  scream,  my 
mother  flung  the  footstool  at  his  head.  He  vanished,  and  she 
awoke. 

"  This  dream  left  on  my  mother's  mind  a  fearful  apprehen- 
sion of  impending  misfortune,  *  which  would  not  pass  away.'  It 


56 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


was  murder  she  feared  ;  and  her  suspicions  were  not  allayed  by 
the  discovery  that  a  man  (some  time  before  discarded  by  my 
father  for  bad  conduct,  and  with  whom  she  had,  somehow,  asso- 
ciated the  Death  of  her  dream)  had  been  lurking  about  the 
place,  and  sleeping  in  an  adjoining  outhouse  on  the  night  it 
occurred,  and  for  some  nights  previous  and  subsequent  to  it. 
Her  terror  increased.  Sleep  forsook  her;  and  every  night, 
when  the  house  was  still,  she  arose  and  stole,  sometimes  with  a 
candle,  sometimes  in  the  dark,  from  room  to  room,  listening,  in 
a  sort  of  waking  nightmare,  for  the  breathing  of  the  assassin, 
who,  she  imagined,  was  lurking  in  some  one  of  them.  This 
could  not  last.  She  reasoned  with  herself ;  but  her  terror  be- 
came intolerable,  and  she  related  her  dream  to  my  father,  who, 
of  course,  called  her  a  fool  for  her  pains,  whatever  might  be  his 
real  opinion  of  the  matter. 

u  Three  months  had  elapsed,  when  we  children  were  all  of  us 
seized  with  scarlet  fever.  My  sister  Catherine  died  almost  im- 
mediately—  sacrificed,  as  my  mother  in  her  misery  thought,  to 
her  (my  mother's)  over-anxiety  for  Alexes,  whose  danger  seemed 
more  imminent.  The  dream-prophecy  was  in  part  fulfilled.  I 
also  was  at  death's  door  —  given  up  by  the  doctors,  but  not  by 
my  mother  :  she  was  confident  of  my  recovery ;  but  for  my 
brother,  who  was  scarcely  considered  in  danger  at  all,  but  on 
whose  head  she  had  seen  the  visionary  axe  impending,  her  fears 
were  great ;  for  she  could  not  recollect  whether  the  blow  had 
or  had  not  descended  when  the  spectre  vanished.  My  brother 
recovered,  but  relapsed,  and  barely  escaped  with  life ;  but 
Alexes  did  not.  For  a  year  and  ten  months  the  poor  child  lin- 
gered, and  almost  every  night  I  had  to  sing  her  asleep  —  often, 
I  remember,  through  bitter  tears,  for  I  knew  she  was  dying, 
and  I  loved  her  the  more  as  she  wasted  away.  I  held  her  little 
hand  as  she  died;  I  followed  her  to  the  grave  —  the  last  thing 
that  I  have  loved  on  earth.    And  the  dream  was  fulfilled. 

"  Truly  and  sincerely  yours,  J.  Noel  Paton." 

The  dreaming  of  coffins  and  funerals,  when  a  death  is  im- 
pending, must  be  considered  as  examples  of  this  allegorical 


DREAMS  AND  PRESENTIMENTS. 


57 


language.  Instances  of  this  kind  are  extremely  numerous.  Not 
unfrequently  the  dreamer,  as  in  cases  of  second-sight,  sees  either 
the  body  in  the  coffin,  so  as  to  be  conscious  of  who  is  to  die,  or 
else  is  made  aware  of  it  from  seeing  the  funeral-procession  at 
a  certain  house,  or  from  some  other  significant  circumstance. 
This  faculty,  which  has  been  supposed  to  belong  peculiarly  to 
the  highlanders  of  Scotland,  appears  to  be  fully  as  well  known 
in  Wales  and  on  the  continent,  especially  in  Germany. 

The  language  of  dreams,  however,  is  not  always  symbolical. 
Occasionally,  the  scene,  that  is  transacting  at  a  distance,  or  that 
is  to  be  transacted  at  some  future  period,  is  literally  presented 
to  the  sleeper,  as  things  appear  to  be  presented  in  many  cases 
of  second-sight,  and  also  in  clairvoyance  ;  and,  since  we  suppose 
him  (that  is,  the  sleeper)  to  be  in  a  temporarily  magnetic  state, 
we  must  conclude  that  the  degree  of  perspicuity,  or  translu- 
cency  of  the  vision,  depends  on  the  degree  of  that  state.  Nev- 
ertheless, there  are  considerable  difficulties  attending  this  theory. 
A  great  proportion  of  the  prophetic  dreams  we  hear  of  are  con- 
nected with  the  death  of  some  friend  or  relative.  Some,  it  is 
true,  regard  unimportant  matters,  as  visits,  and  so  forth ;  but 
this  is  generally,  though  not  exclusively,  the  case  only  with  per- 
sons who  have  a  constitutional  tendency  to  this  kind  of  dream- 
ing, and  with  whom  it  is  frequent ;  but  it  is  not  uncommon  for 
those  who  have  not  discovered  any  such  tendency,  to  be  made 
aware  of  a  death  :  and  the  number  of  dreams  of  this  description 
I  meet  with  is  very  considerable.  Now,  it  is  difficult  to  con- 
ceive what  the  condition  is  that  causes  this  perception  of  an 
approaching  death ;  or  why,  supposing,  as  we  have  suggested 
above,  that,  when  the  senses  sleep,  the  untrammelled  spirit  sees, 
the  memory  of  this  revelation,  if  I  may  so  call  it,  so  much  more 
frequently  survives  than  any  other,  unless,  indeed,  it  be  the  force 
of  the  shock  sustained  —  which  shock,  it  is  to  be  remarked, 
always  wakes  the  sleeper ;  and  this  may  be  the  reason  that,  if 
he  fall  asleep  again,  the  dream  is  almost  invariably  repeated. 

I  could  fill  pages  with  dreams  of  this  description  which  have 
come  to  my  knowledge,  or  been  recorded  by  others. 

Mr.  H  ,  a  gentleman  with  whom  I  am  acquainted  —  a  man 

3* 


58 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


engaged  in  active  business,  and  apparently  as  little  likely  as  any 
one  I  ever  knew  to  be  troubled  with  a  faculty  of  this 'sort  — 
dreamed  that  he  saw  a  certain  friend  of  his  dead.  The  dream 
was  so  like  reality,  that,  although  he  had  no  reason  whatever 
to  suppose  his  friend  ill,  he  could  not  forbear  sending  in  the 
morning  to  inquire  for  him.  The  answer  returned  was,  that 
Mr.  A  was  out,  and  was  quite  well.  The  impression,  how- 
ever, was  so  vivid,  that,  although  he  had  nearly  three  miles  to 
send,  Mr.  H  felt  that  he  could  not  start  for  Glasgow,  whith- 
er business  called  him,  without  making  another  inquiry.  This 
time  his  friend  was  at  home,  and  answered  for  himself,  that  he 
was  very  well,  and  that  somebody  must  have  been  hoaxing 

H  ,  and  making  him  believe  otherwise.    Mr.  H   set 

out  on  his  journey,  wondering  at  his  own  anxiety,  but  unable 
to  conquer  it.  He  was  absent  but  a  few  days  (I  think  three) ; 
and  the  first  news  he  heard  on  his  return  was,  that  his  friend 
had  been  seized  with  an  attack  of  inflammation,  and  was  dead. 

A  German  professor  lately  related  to  a  friend  of  mine,  that, 
being  some  distance  from  home,  he  dreamed  that  his  father  was 
dying,  and  was  calling  for  him.  The  dream  being  repeated, 
he  was  so  far  impressed  as  to  alter  his  plans,  and  return  home, 
where  he  arrived  in  time  to  receive  his  parent's  last  breath. 
He  was  informed  that  the  dying  man  had  been  calling  upon  his 
name  repeatedly,  in  deep  anguish  at  his  absence. 

A  parallel  case  to  this  is  that  of  Mr.  R  E  S  ,  an 

accountant  in  Edinburgh,  and  a  shrewd  man  of  business,  who 
relates  the  following  circumstance  as  occurring  to  himself.  He 
is  a  native  of  Dalkeith,  and  was  residing  there,  when,  being 
about  fifteen  years  "of  age,  he  left  home  on  a  Saturday,  to  spend 
a  few  days  with  a  friend  at  Prestonpans.  On  the  Sunday  night 
he  dreamed  that  his  mother  was  extremely  ill,  and  started  out 
of  his  sleep  with  an  impression  that  he  must  go  to  her  imme- 
diately. He  even  got  out  of  bed  with  the  intention  of  doing  so, 
but,  reflecting  that  he  had  left  her  quite  well,  and  that  it  was 
only  a  dream,  he  returned  to  bed,  and  again  fell  asleep.  But 
the  dream  returned,  and,  unable  longer  to  control  his  anxiety, 
he  arose,  dressed  himself  in  the  dark,  quitted  the  house,  leaping 


DREAMS  AND  PRESENTIMENTS. 


69 


the  railings  that  surrounded  it,  and  made  the  Lest  of  his  way  to 
Dalkeith.  On  reaching  home,  which  he  did  before  daylight,  he 
tapped  at  the  kitchen-window,  and,  on  gaining  admittance,  was 
informed  that  on  the  Saturday  evening,  after  he  had  departed, 
his  mother  had  been  seized  with  an  attack  of  British  cholera, 
and  was  lying  above,  extremely  ill.  She  had  been  lamenting 
his  absence  extremely,  and  had  scarcely  ceased  crying,  **  Oh, 
Ralph,  Ralph  !  what  a  grief  that  you  are  away !"  At  nine 
o'clock  he  was  admitted  to  her  room ;  but  she  was  no  longer  in 
a  condition  to  recognise  him,  and  she  died  within  a  day  or  two. 

Instances  of  this  sort  are  numerous,  but  it  wouJd  be  tedious 
to  narrate  them,  especially  as  there  is  little  room  for  variety  in 
the  details.  I  shall  therefore  content  myself  with  giving  one  or 
two  specimens  of  each  class,  confining  my  examples  to  such  as 
have  been  communicated  to  myself,  except  where  any  case  of 
particular  interest  leads  me  to  deviate  from  this  plan.  The 
frequency  of  such  phenomena  may  be  imagined,  when  I  men- 
tion that  the  instances  I  shall  give,  with  few  exceptions,  have 
been  collected  with  little  trouble,  and  without  seeking  beyond 
0  my  own  small  circle  of  acquaintance. 

In  the  family  of  the  above-named  gentleman  (Mr.  R  

E  S  ),  there  probably  existed  a  faculty  of  presenti- 
ment; for,  in  the  year  1810,  his  elder  brother  being  assistant- 
surgeon  on  board  the  "  Gorgon,"  war-brig,  his  father  dreamed 
that  he  was  promoted  to  the  "  Sparrowhawk,"  a  ship  he  had 
then  never  heard  of — neither  had  the  family  received  any  intel- 
ligence of  the  young  man  for  several  months.  He  told  his  dream, 
and  was  well  laughed  at  for  his  pains ;  but  in  a  few  weeks  a 
letter  arrived  announcing  the  promotion. 

When  Lord  Burghersh  was  giving  theatrical  parties  at  Flor- 

3nce,  a  lady  (Mrs.  M  ,  whose  presence  was  very  important) 

excused  herself  one  evening,  being  in  great  alarm  from  having 
dreamed  in  the  night  that  her  sister,  in  England,  was  dead, 
which  proved  to  be  the  fact. 

Mr.  W  ,  a  young  man  at  Glasgow  college,  not  long  since 

dreamed  that  his  aunt  in  Russia  was  dead.  He  noted  the  date 
of  his  dream  on  the  window-shutter  of  his  chamber.    In  a  short 


GO 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


time  the  news  of  the  lady's  death  arrived.  The  dates,  however, 
did  not  accord  ;  but,  on  mentioning  the  circumstance  to  a  friend, 
he  was  reminded  that  the  adherence  of  the  Russians  to  the  old 
style  reconciled  the  difference. 

A  man  of  business,  in  Glasgow,  lately  dreamed  that  he  saw 
a  coffin,  on  which  was  inscribed  the  name  of  a  friend,  with  the 
date  of  his  death.  Some  time  afterward  he  was  summoned  to 
attend  the  funeral  of  that  person,  who,  at  the  time  of  the  dream, 
was  in  good  health,  and  he  was  struck  with  surprise  on  seeing 
the  plate  of  the  coffin  bearing  the  very  date  he  had  seen  in  his 
dream. 

A  French  gentleman,  Monsieur  de  V  ,  dreamed,  some 

years  since,  that  he  saw  a  tomb,  on  which  he  read  very  dis- 
tinctly, the  following  date  —  23d  June,  184 —  j  there  were,  also, 
some  initials,  but  so  much  effaced  that  he  could  not  make  them 
out.  He  mentioned  the  circumstance  to  his  wife  ;  and  for  some 
time,  they  could  not  help  dreading  the  recurrence  of  the  omi- 
nous month  ;  but,  as  year  after  year  passed,  and  nothing  hap- 
pened, they  had  ceased  to  think  of  it,  when  at  last  the  symbol 
was  explained.  On  the  23d  of  June,  1846,  their  only  daughter, 
died  at  the  age  of  seventeen. 

Thus  far  the  instances  I  have  related  seem  to  resolve  them- 
selves into  cases  of  simple  clairvoyance,  or  second  sight  in  sleep, 
although,  in  using  these  words,  I  am  very  far  from  meaning  to 
imply  that  I  explain  the  thing,  or  unveil  its  mystery.  The 
theory  above  alluded  to,  seems  as  yet,  the  only  one  applicable 
to  the  facts,  namely,  that  the  senses,  being  placed  in  a  negative 
and  passive  state,  the  universal  sense  of  the  immortal  spirit 
within,  which  sees*,  and  hears,  and  knows,  or  rather,  in  one 
word,  perceives,  without  organs,  becomes  more  or  less  free  to 
work  unclogged.  That  the  soul  is  a  mirror  in  which  the  spirit 
sees  all  things  reflected,  is  a  modification  of  this  theory  ;  but  1 
confess  I  find  myself  unable  to  attach  any  idea  to  this  latter  form 
of  expression.  Another  view,  which  I  have  heard  suggested 
by  an  eminent  person,  is,  that  if  it  be  true,  as  maintained  by 
Dr.  Wigan,  and  some  other  physiologists,  that  our  brains  are 
double,  it  is  possible  that  a  polarity  may  exist  between  the  two 


PRESENTIMENT. 


61 


sides,  by  means  of  which  the  negative  side  may,  under  certain 
circumstances,  become  a  mirror  to  the  positive.  It  seems  diffi- 
cult to  reconcile  this  notion  with  the  fact,  that  these  perceptions 
occur  most  frequently  when  the  brain  is  asleep.  How  far  the 
sleep  is  perfect  and  general,  however,  we  can  never  know ;  and 
of  course,  when  the  powers  of  speech  and  locomotion  continue 
to  be  exercised,  we  are  aware  that  it  is  only  partial,  in  a  more 
or  less  degree.  In  the  case  of  magnetic  sleepers,  observation 
shows  us,  that  the  auditory  nerves  are  aroused  by  being  ad- 
dressed, and  fall  asleep  again  as  soon  as  they  are  left  undis- 
turbed. In  most  cases  of  natural  sleep,  the  same  process,  if 
the  voice  were  heard  at  all,  would  disperse  sleep  altogether  ; 
and  it  must  be  remembered  that,  as  Dr.  Holland  says,  sleep  is 
a  fluctuating  condition,  varying  from  one  moment  to  another, 
and  this  allowance  must  be  made  when  considering  magnetic 
sleep  also. 

It  is  by  this  theory  of  the  duality  of  the  brain,  which  seems 
to  have  many  arguments  in  its  favor,  and  the  alternate  sleeping 
and  waking  of  the  two  sides,  that  Dr.  Wigan  seeks  to  account 
for  the  state  of  double  or  alternate  consciousnesss  above  allu- 
ded to  ;  and  also,  for  that  strange  sensation  which  most  people 
have  experienced,  of  having  witnessed  a  scene,  or  heard  a  con- 
versation, at  some  indefinite  period  before,  or  even  in  some 
earlier  state  of  existence.  He  thinks  that  one  half  of  the  brain 
being  in  a  more  active  condition  than  the  other,  it  takes  cogni- 
zance of  the  scene  first ;  and  that  thus  the  perceptions  of  the 
second,  when  they  take  place,  appear  to  be  a  repetition  of  some 
former  experiences.  I  confess  this  theory,  as  regards  this  lat- 
ter phenomenon,  is  to  me  eminently  unsatisfactory,  and  it  is  es- 
pecially defective  in  not  accounting  for  one  of  the  most  curious 
particulars  connected  with  it,  namely,  that  on  these  occasions 
people  not  only  seem  to  recognise  the  circumstances  as  having 
been  experienced  before  ;  but  they  have,  very  frequently,  an 
actual  foreknowledge  of  what  will  be  next  said  or  done. 

Now,  the  explanation  of  this  mystery,  I  incline  to  think,  may 
possibly  lie  in  the  hypothesis  I  have  suggested  ;  namely,  that  in 
profound,  and  what  appears  to  us  generally  to  have  been  dreamless 


63 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


sleep,  we  are  clear-seers.  The  map  of  coming  events  lies  open 
before  us,  the  spirit  surveys  it ;  but  with  the  awaking  of  the  sen- 
suous organs,  this  dream-life,  with  its  aerial  excursions,  passes 
away,  and  we  are  translated  into  our  other  sphere  of  existence. 
But,  occasionally,  some  flash  of  recollection,  some  ray  of  light 
from  this  visionary  world,  in  which  we  have  been  living,  breaks 
in  upon  our  external  objective  existence,  and  we  recognise  the 
locality,  the  voice,  the  very  words,  as  being  but  a  reacting  of  some 
foregone  scenes  of  a  drama. 

The  faculty  of  presentiment,  of  which  everybody  must  have 
heard  instances,  seems  to  have  some  affinity  to  the  phenomenon 
last  referred  to.  I  am  acquainted  with  a  lady,  in  whom  this 
faculty  is  in  some  degree  developed,  who  has  evinced  it  by  a 
consciousness  of  the  moment  when  a  death  was  taking  place  in 
her  family,  or  among  her  connections,  although  she  does  not 
know  who  it  is  that  has  departed.  I  have  heard  of  several 
cases  of  people  hurrying  home  from  a  presentiment  of  fire  ;  and 

Mr.  M  of  Calderwood  was  once,  when  absent  from  home, 

seized  with  such  an  anxiety  about  his  family,  that  without  being 
able  in  any  way  to  account  for  it,  he  felt  himself  impelled  to  fly 
to  them  and  remove  them  from  the  house  they  were  inhabiting ; 
one  wing  of  which  fell  down  immediately  afterward.  No  no- 
tion of  such  a  misfortune  had  ever  before  occurred  to  him,  nor 
was  there  any  reason  whatever  to  expect  it ;  the  accident  ori- 
ginating from  some  defect  in  the  foundations. 

A  circumstance,  exactly  similar  to  this,  is  related  by  Stilling, 
of  Professor  Bohm,  teacher  of  mathematics  at  Marburg  ;  who 
being  one  evening  in  company,  was  suddenly  seized  with  a 
conviction  that  he  ought  to  go  home.  As  however,  he  was 
very  comfortably  taking  his  tea,  and  had  nothing  to  do  at  home, 
he  resisted  the  admonition  ;  but  it  returned  with  such  force  that 
at  length  he  was  obliged  to  yield.  On  reaching  his  house,  he 
found  everything  as  he  had  left  it;  but  he  now  felt  himself 

uro-ed  to  remove  his  bed  from  the  corner  in  which  it  stood  to 

o 

another ;  but  as  it  had  always  stood  there,  he  resisted  this  im- 
pulsion also.  However,  the  resistance  was  vain,  absurd  as  it 
seemed,  he  felt  he  must  do  it ;  so  he  summoned  the  maid,  and 


PRESENTIMENT. 


G3 


with  her  aid,  drew  the  bed  to  the  other  side  of  the  room  ;  after 
which  he  felt  quite  at  ease  and  returned  to  spend  the  rest  of 
the  evening  with  his  friends.  At  ten  o'clock  the  party  broke 
up,  and  he  retired  home  and  went  to  bed  and  to  sleep.  In  the 
middle  of  the  night,  he  was  awakened  by  a  loud  crash,  and  on 
looking  out,  he  saw  that  a  large  beam  had  fallen,  bringing  part 
of  the  ceiling  with  it,  and  was  lying  exactly  on  the  spot  his  bed 
had  occupied. 

A  young  servant  girl  in  this  neighborhood,  who  had  been  sev- 
eral years  in  an  excellent  situation,  where  she  was  much  es- 
teemed, was  suddenly  seized  with  a  presentiment  that  she  was 
wanted  at  home  ;  and,  in  spite  of  all  representations,  she  re- 
signed her  place,  and  set  out  on  her  journey  thither  ;  where, 
when  she  arrived,  she  found  her  parents  extremely  ill,  one  of 
them  mortally,  and  in  the  greatest  need  of  her  services.  No 
intelligence  of  their  illness  had  reached  her,  nor  could  she  her- 
self in  any  way  account  for  the  impulse.  I  have  heard  of  nu- 
merous well-authenticated  cases  of  people  escaping  drowning 
from  being  seized  with  an  unaccountable  presentiment  of  evil 
when  there  were  no  external  signs  whatever  to  justify  the  ap- 
prehension. The  story  of  Cazotte,  as  related  by  La  Harpe,  is 
a  very  remarkable  instance  of  this  sort  of  faculty ;  and  seems 
to  indicate  a  power  like  that  possessed  by  Zschokke,  who  re- 
lates, in  his  autobiography,  that  frequently  while  conversing  with 
a  stranger,  the  whole  circumstances  of  that  person's  previous 
life  were  revealed  to  him,  even  comprising  details  of  places  and 
persons.  In  the  case  of  Cazotte,  it  was  the  future  that  was 
laid  open  to  him,  and  he  foretold,  to  a  company  of  eminent  per- 
sons, in  the  year  1788,  the  fate  which  awaited  each  individual, 
himself  included,  in  consequence  of  the  revolution  then  commen- 
cing.   As  this  story  is  already  in  print,  I  forbear  to  relate  it. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  cases  of  presentiment  I  know,  is, 
that  which  occurred,  not  very  long  since,  on  board  one  of  her 
majesty's  ships,  when  lying  off  Portsmouth.    The  officers  being 

one  day  at  the*mess-table,  young  Lieutenant  P   suddenly 

laid  down  his  knife  and  fork,  pushed  away  his  plate,  and  turned 
extremely  pale.  He  then  rose  from  the  table,  covering  his  face 


64 


THE  NIGHT -  SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


with  his  hands,  and  retired  from  the  room.  The  president  of 
the  mess,  supposing  him  to  be  ill,  sent  one  of  the  young  men 
to  inquire  what  was  the  matter.  At  first  Mr.  P  was  un- 
willing to  speak,  but  on  being  pressed,  he  confessed  that  he  had 
been  seized  by  a  sudden  and  irresistible  impression  that  a 
brother  he  had  then  in  India  was  dead.  "  He  died,"  said  he, 
"on  the  12th  of  August,  at  six  o'clock;  I  am  perfectly  certain 
of  it !"  No  arguments  could  overthrow  this  conviction,  which, 
in  due  course  of  post,  was  verified  to  the  letter.  The  young 
man  had  died  at  Cawnpore,  at  the  precise  period  mentioned. 

When  any  exhibition  of  this  sort  of  faculty  occurs  in  animals, 
which  is  by  no  means  unfrequent,  it  is  termed  instinct ;  and 
we  look  upon  it,  as  what  it  probably  is,  only  another  and  more 
rare  development  of  that  intuitive  knowledge  which  enables 
them  to  seek  their  food,  and  perform  the  other  functions  neces- 
sary for  the  maintenance  of  their  existence  and  the  continuance 
of  their  race.  Now,  it  is  remarkable,  that  the  life  of  an  animal  is 
a  sort  of  dream-life  ;  their  ganglionic  system  is  more  developed 
than  that  of  man,  and  the  cerebral  less ;  and  since  it  is,  doubt- 
less, from  the  greater  development  of  the  ganglionic  system  in 
women  that  they  exhibit  more  frequent  instances  of  such  ab- 
normal phenomena  as  I  am  treating  of,  than  men,  we  may  be, 
perhaps,  justified  in  considering  the  faculty  of  presentiment  in 
a  human  being  as  a  suddenly-awakened  instinct ;  just  as  in  an 
animal  it  is  an  intensified  instinct. 

Everybody  has  either  witnessed  or  heard  of  instances  of  this 
sort  of  presentiment,  in  dogs  especially.  For  the  authenticity 
of  the  following  anecdote  I  can  vouch,  the  traditions  being  very 
carefully  preserved  in  the  family  concerned,  from  whom  I  have 

it.    In  the  last  century,  Mr.  P  ,  a  member  of  this  family, 

who  had  involved  himself  in  some  of  the  stormy  affairs  of  this 
northern  part  of  the  island,  was  one  day  surprised  by  seeing  a, 
favorite  dog,  that  was  lying  at  his  feet,  start  suddenly  up  and 
seize  him  by  the  knee,  which  he  pulled — not  with  violence,  but 
in  a  manner  that  indicated  a  wish  that  his  master  should  follow 
him  to  the  door.  The  gentleman  resisted  the  invitation  for 
some  time,  till  at  length,  the  perseverance  of  the  animal  rousing 


PRESENTIMENT. 


65 


nis  curiosity,  he  yielded,  and  was  thus  conducted  by  the  dog 
into  the  most  sequestered  part  of  a  neighboring  thicket,  where, 
however,  he  could  see  nothing  to  account  for  his  dumb  friend's 
proceeding,  who  now  lay  himself  down,  quite  satisfied,  and 
seemed  to  wish  his  master  to  follow  his  example,  which,  deter- 
mined to  pursue  the  adventure  and  find  out,  if  possible,  what 
was  meant,  he  did.  A  considerable  time  now  elapsed  before 
the  dog  would  consent  to  his  master's  going  home  ;  but  at 
length  he  arose  and  led  the  way  thither,  when  the  first  news 

Mr.  P  heard  was,  that  a  party  of  soldiers  had  been  there  in 

quest  of  him ;  and  he  was  shown  the  marks  of  their  spikes, 
which  had  been  thrust  through  the  bed-clothes  in  their  search. 
He  fled,  and  ultimately  escaped,  his  life  being  thus  preserved 
by  his  dog 

Some  years  ago,  at  Plymouth,  I  had  a  brown  spaniel  that 
regularly,  with  great  delight,  accompanied  my  son  and  his  nurse 
in  their  morning's  walk.  One  day  she  came  to  complain  to  me 
that  Tiger  would  not  go  out  with  them.  Nobody  could  conceive 
the  reason  of  so  unusual  a  caprice ;  and,  unfortunately,  we  did 
not  yield  to  it,  but  forced  him  to  go.  In  less  than  a  quarter  of 
an  hour  he  was  brought  back,  so  torn  to  pieces,  by  a  savage  dog 
that  had  just  come  ashore  from  a  foreign  vessel,  that  it  was 
found  necessary  to  shoot  him  immediately. 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


CHAPTER  V. 

WARNINGS. 

This  comparison  between  the  power  of  presentiment  in  a 
human  being  and  the  instincts  of  an  animal,  may  be  offensive 
to  some  people ;  but  it  must  be  admitted,  that,  as  far  as  we  can 
see,  the  manifestation  is  the  same,  whatever  be  the  cause.  Now, 
the  body  of  an  animal  must  be  informed  by  an  immaterial  prin- 
ciple—  let  us  call  it  soul  or  spirit,  or  anything  else  ;  for  it  is  evi- 
dent that  their  actions  are  not  the  mere  result  of  organization  ; 
and  all  I  mean  to  imply  is,  that  .this  faculty  of  foreseeing  must 
be  inherent  in  intelligent  spirit,  let  it  be  lodged  in  what  form 
of  flesh  it  may  ;  while,  with  regard  to  what  instinct  is,  we  are, 
in  the  meanwhile,  in  extreme  ignorance,  Instinct  being  a  word 
which,  like  hn agination,  everybody  uses,  and  nobody  under- 
stands. 

Ennemoser  and  Schubert  believe,  that  the  instinct  by  which 
animals  seek  their  food,  consists  in  polarity,  but  I  have  met  with 
only  two  modern  theories  which  pretend  to  explain  the  phenom- 
ena of  presentiment ;  the  one  is,  that  the  person  is  in  a  tempora- 
rily-magnetic state,  and  that  the  presentiment  is  a  kind  of  clair- 
voyance. That  the  faculty,  like  that  of  prophetic  dreaming,  is 
constitutional,  and  chiefly  manifested  in  certain  families,  is  well 
established  ;  and  the  very  unimportant  events,  such  as  visits, 
and  so  forth,  on  which  it  frequently  exercises  itself,  forbid  us  to 
seek  an  explanation  in  a  higher  source.  It  seems,  also,  to  be 
quite  independent  of  the  will  of  the  subject,  as  it  was  in  the 
case  of  Zschokke,  who  found  himself  thus  let  into  the  secrets 
of  persons  in  whom  he  felt  no  manner  of  interest,  while,  where 
the  knowledge  might  have  been  of  use  to  him,  he  could  not 


WARNINGS. 


C? 


command  it.  The  theory  of  one  half  of  the  brain  in  a  negative 
state,  serving  as  a  mirror  to  the  other  half,  if  admitted  at  all, 
may  answer  as  well,  or  better,  for  these  waking  presentiments, 
than  for  clear-seeing  in  dreams.  But,  for  my  own  part,  I  incline 
very  much  to  the  views  of  that  school  of  philosophers  who 
adopt  the  first  and  more  spiritual  theory,  which  seems  to  me  to 
offer  fewer  difficulties,  while,  as  regards  our  present  nature,  and 
future  hopes,  it  is  certainly  more  satisfactory.  Once  admitted 
that  the  body  is  but  the  temporary  dwelling  of  an  immaterial 
spirit,  the  machine  through  which,  and  by  which,  in  its  normal 
states,  the  spirit  alone  can  manifest  itself,  I  can  not  see  any 
great  difficulty  in  conceiving  that,  in  certain  conditions  of  that 
body,  their  relations  may  be  modified,  and  that  the  spirit  may 
perceive,  by  its  own  inherent  quality,  without  the  aid  of  its  ma- 
terial vehicle  ;  and,  as  this  condition  of  the  body  may  arise  from 
causes  purely  physical,  we  see  at  once  why  the  revelations  fre- 
quently regard  such  unimportant  events. 

Plutarch,  in  his  dialogue  between  Lamprius  and  Ammonius, 
observes,  that  if  the  demons,  or  protecting  spirits,  that  watch 
over  mankind,  are  disembodied  souls,  we  ought  not  to  doubt  that 
those  spirits,  even  when  in  the  flesh,  possessed  the  faculties  they 
low  enjoy,  since  we  have  no  reason  to  suppose  that  any  new 
ones  are  conferred  at  the  period  of  dissolution ;  for  these  facul- 
ties must  be  inherent,  although  temporarily  obscured,  and  weak 
and  ineffective  in  their  manifestations.  As  it  is  not  when  the 
sun  breaks  from  behind  the  clouds  that  he  first  begins  to  shine, 
so  it  is  not  when  the  soul  issues  from  the  body,  as  from  a  cloud 
that  envelops  it,  that  it  first  attains  the  power  of  looking  into 
the  future. 

But  the  events  foreseen  are  not  always  unimportant,  nor  is 
the  mode  of  the  communication  always  of  the  same  nature.  I 
have  mentioned  above  some  instances  wherein  danger  was 
avoided,  and  there  are  many  of  the  same  kind  recorded  in  vari- 
ous works ;  and  it  is  the  number  of  instances  of  this  descrip- 
tion, corroborated  by  the  universal  agreement  of  all  somnam- 
bulists of  a  higher  order,  which  has  induced  a  considerable 
section  of  the  German  psychologists  to  adopt  the  doctrine  of 


03 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


guardian  spirits  —  a  doctrine  which  has  prevailed,  more  or  less, 
in  all  ages,  and  has  been  considered  by  many  theologians  to  be 
supported  by  the  Bible.  There  is  in  this  country,  and  I  believe 
in  France,  also,  though  with  more  exceptions,  such  an  extreme 
aversion  to  admit  the  possibility  of  anything  like  what  is  called 
supernatural  agency,  that  the  mere  avowal  of  such  a  persuasion 
is  enough  to  discredit  one's  understanding  with  a  considerable 
part  of  the  world,  not  excepting  those  who  profess  to  believe 
in  the  Scriptures.  Yet,  even  apart  from  this  latter  authority,  I 
can  not  see  anything  repugnant  to  reason  in  such  a  belief.  As 
far  as  we  see  of  nature,  there  is  a  continued  series  from  the 
lowest  to  the  highest ;  and  what  right  have  we  to  conclude  that 
we  are  the  last  link  of  the  chain  ?  "Why  may  there  not  be  a 
gamut  of  beings  1  That  such  should  be  the  case,  is  certainly  in 
accordance  with  all  that  we  see ;  and  that  we  do  not  see  them, 
affords,  as  I  have  said  above,  not  a  shadow  of  argument  against 
their  existence  ;  man,  immersed  in  business  and  pleasure,  living 
only  his  sensuous  life,  is  too  apt  to  forget  how  limited  those 
senses  are,  how  merely  designed  for  a  temporary  purpose,  and 
how  much  may  exist  of  which  they  can  take  no  cognizance. 

The  possibility  admitted,  the  chief  arguments  against  the 
probability  of  such  a  guardianship,  are  the  interference  it 
implies  with  the  free-will  of  man,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
rarity  of  this  interference,  on  the  other.  With  respect  to  the 
first  matter  of  free-will,  it  is  a  subject  of  acknowledged  diffi- 
culty, and  beyond  the  scope  of  my  work.  Nobody  can  hon- 
estly look  back  upon  his  past  life  without  feeling  perplexed  by 
the  question,  of  how  far  he  was,  or  was  not,  able  at  the  moment 
to  resist  certain  impulsions,  which  caused  him  to  commit  wrong 
or  imprudent  actions ;  and  it  must,  I  fear,  ever  remain  a  quoes- 
tio  vexata,  how  far  our  virtues  and  vices  depend  upon  our 
organization  —  an  organization  whose  constitution  is  beyond 
our  own  power,  in  the  first  instance,  although  we  may  cer- 
tainly improve  or  deteriorate  it ;  but  which  we  must  admit,  at 
the  same  time,  to  be,  in  its  present  deteriorated  form,  the  ill 
result  of  the  world's  corruption,  and  the  inherited  penalty  of 
the  vices  of  our  predecessors,  whereby  the  sins  of  the  fathers 


WARNINGS. 


G9 


are  visited  upon  the  children  unto  the  third  and  fourth  gen- 
eration. 

There  is,  as  the  Scriptures  say,  but  one  way  to  salvation, 
though  there  are  many  to  perdition  —  that  is,  though  there  are 
many  wrongs,  there  is  only  one  right ;  for  truth  is  one,  and 
our  true  liberty  consists  in  being  free  to  follow  it ;  for  we  can 
not  imagine  that  anybody  seeks  his  own  perdition,  and  nobody, 
I  conceive,  loves  vice  for  its  own  sake,  as  others  love  vir- 
tue, that  is,  because  it  is  vice  :  so  that,  when  they  follow  its 
dictates,  we  must  conclude  that  they  are  not  free,  but  in  bond- 
age, whose  ever  bond-slave  they  be,  whether  of  an  evil  spirit, 
or  of  their  own  organization ;  and  I  think  every  human  being, 
who  looks  into  himself,  will  feel  that  he  is  in  effect  then  only 
free  when  he  is  obeying  the  dictates  of  virtue ;  and  that  the 
language  of  Scripture,  which  speaks  of  sin  as  a  bondage,  is  not 
only  metaphorically  but  literally  true. 

The  warning  a  person  of  an  impending  danger  or  error 
implies  no  constraint ;  the  subject  of  the  warning  is  free  to  take 
the  hint  or  not,  as  he  pleases ;  we  receive  many  cautions,  both 
from  other  people  and  from  our  own  consciences,  which  we 
refuse  to  benefit  by. 

With  regard  to  the  second  objection,  it  seems  to  have  greater 
weight ;  for  although  the  instances  of  presentiment  are  very 
numerous,  taken  apart,  they  are  certainly,  as  far  as  we  know, 
still  but  exceptional  cases.  But  here  we  must  remember 
that  an  influence  of  this  sort  might  be  very  continuously,  though 
somewhat  remotely,  exercised  in  favor  of  an  individual,  without 
the  occurrence  of  any  instance  of  so  striking  a  nature  as  to  ren- 
der the  interference  manifest ;  and  certain  it  is  that  some  peo- 
ple—  I  have  met  with  several,  and  very  sensible  persons  too  — 
have  all  their  lives  an  intuitive  persuasion  of  such  a  guardian- 
ship existing  in  relation  to  themselves.  That  in  our  normal 
states  it  was  not  intended  we  should  hold  sensible  communion 
with  the  invisible  world,  seems  evident ;  but  nature  abounds  in 
exceptions  ;  and  there  may  be  conditions  regarding  both  par- 
ties, the  incorporated  and  the  unincorporated  spirit,  which  may 
at  times  bring  them  into  a  more  intimate  relation.    No  one 


70 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


who  believes  that  consciousness  is  to  survive  the  death  of  the 
body,  can  doubt  that  the  released  spirit  will  then  hold  commu 
nion  with  its  congeners;  it  being  the  fleshly  tabernacles  we 
inhabit  which  alone  disables  us  from  doing  so  at  present.  But 
since  the  constitutions  of  bodies  vary  exceedingly,  not  only  in 
different  individuals,  but  in  the  same  individuals  at  different 
times,  may  we  not  conceive  the  possibility  of  there  existing 
conditions  which,  by  diminishing  the  obstructions,  render  this 
communion  practicable  within  certain  limits  1  For  there  cer- 
tainly are  recorded  and  authentic  instances  of  presentiments 
and  warnings,  that  with  difficulty  admit  of  any  other  explana- 
tion ;  and  that  these  admonitions  are  more  frequently  received 
in  the  state  of  sleep  than  of  vigilance,  rather  furnishes  an  addi- 
tional argument  in  favor  of  the  last  hypothesis ;  for  if  there  be 
any  foundation  for  the  theories  above  suggested,  it  is  then  that, 
the  sensuous  functions  being  in  abeyance  and  the  external  life 
thereby  shut  out  from  us,  the  spirit  would  be  most  susceptible  to 
the  operations  of  spirit,  whether  of  our  deceased  friends  or  of  ap- 
pointed ministers,  if  such  there  be.  Jung  Stelling  is  of  opinion 
that  we  must  decide  from  the  aim  and  object  of  the  revelation, 
whether  it  be  a  mere  development  of  the  faculty  of  presenti- 
ment, or  a  case  of  spiritual  intervention  ;  but  this  would  surely 
be  a  very  erroneous  mode  of  judging,  since  the  presentiment 
that  foresees  a  visit  may  foresee  a  danger,  and  show  us  how 
to  avoid  it,  as  in  the  following  instance  :  — 

A  few  years  ago,  Dr.  W  ,  now  residing  at  Glasgow, 

dreamed  that  he  received  a  summons  to  attend  a  patient  at  a 
place  some  miles  from  where  he  was  living ;  that  he  started  on 
horseback ;  and  that,  as  he  was  crossing  a  moor,  he  saw  a  bull 
making  furiously  at  him,  whose  horns  he  only  escaped  by  taking 
refuge  on  a  spot  inaccessible  to  the  animal,  where  he  waited  a 
long  time,  till  some  people,  observing  his  situation,  came  to  his 
assistance  and  released  him.  While  at  breakfast  on  the  follow- 
ing morning,  the  summons  came ;  and,  smiling  at  the  odd 
coincidence,  he  started  on  horseback.  He  was  quite  ignorant 
of  the  road  he  had  to  go ;  but  by-and-by  he  arrived  at  the 
moor,  which  he  recognised,  and  presently  the  bull  appeared, 


WARNINGS. 


71 


coming  full  tilt  toward  him.  But  his  dream  had  shown  him  the 
place  of  refuge,  for  which  he  instantly  made ;  and  there  he 
spent  three  or  four  hours,  besieged  by  the  animal,  till  the  coun- 
try people  set  him  free.    Dr.  W  declare*  that,  but  for  the 

dream,  he  should  not  have  known  in  what  direction  to  run  for 
safety. 

A  butcher  named  Bone,  residing  at  Holytown,  dreamed  a 
few  years  since  that  he  was  stopped  at  a  particular  spot  on  his 
way  to  market,  whither  he  was  going  on  the  following  day  to 
purchase  cattle,  by  two  men  in  blue  clothes,  who  cut  his  throat. 
He  told  the  dream  to  his  wife,  who  laughed  at  him ;  but,  as  it 
was  repeated  two  or  three  times  and  she  saw  he  was  really 
alarmed,  she  advised  him  to  join  somebody  who  was  going  the 
same  road.  He  accordingly  listened  till  he  heard  a  cart  pas- 
sing his  door,  and  then  went  out  and  joined  the  man,  telling  him 
the  reason  for  so  doing.  When  they  came  to  the  spot,  there 
actually  stood  the  two  men  in  blue  clothes,  who,  seeing  he  was 
not  alone,  took  to  their  heels  and  ran. 

Now,  although  the  dream  was  here  probably  the  means  of 
saving  Bone's  life,  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  this  is  a 
case  of  what  is  called  supernatural  intervention.  The  phe- 
nomenon would  be  sufficiently  accounted  for  by  the  admission 
of  the  hypothesis  I  have  suggested,  namely,  that  he  was  aware 
of  the  impending  danger  in  his  sleep,  and  had  been  able,  from 
some  cause  unknown  to  us,  to  convey  the  recollection  into  his 
waking  state. 

I  know  instances  in  which,  for  several  mornings  previous  to 
the  occurrence  of  a  calamity,  persons  have  awakened  with  a 
painful  sense  of  misfortune,  for  which  they  could  not  account, 
and  which  was  dispersed  as  soon  as  they  had  time  to  reflect 
that  they  had  no  cause  for  uneasiness.  This  is  the  only  kind 
of  presentiment  I  ever  experienced  myself ;  but  it  has  occurred 
to  me  twice,  in  a  very  marked  and  unmistakable  manner.  As 
soon  as  the  intellectual  life,  the  life  of  the  brain,  and  the  exter- 
nal world,  broke  in,  the  instinctive  life  receded,  and  the  intui- 
tive knowledge  was  obscured.  Or,  according  to  Dr.  Ennemo- 
ser's  theory,  the  polar  relations  changed,  and  the  nerves  were 


72 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


busied  with  conveying  sensuous  impressions  to  the  brain,  their 
sensibility  or  positive  state  now  being  transferred  from  the  in- 
ternal to  the  external  periphery.  It  is  by  the  contrary  change 
that  Dr.  Ennemosfir  seeks  to  explain  the  insensibility  to  pain 
of  mesmerized  patients. 

A  circumstance  of  a  similar  kind  to  the  above  occurred  in  a 

well-known  family  in  Scotland,  the  Rutherfords  of  E  .  A 

lady  dreamed  that  her  aunt,  who  resided  at  some  distance,  was 
murdered  by  a  black  servant.  Impressed  with  the  liveliness 
of  the  vision,  she  could  not  resist  going  to  the  house  of  her 
relation,  where  the  man  she  had  dreamed  of  (whom  I  think  she 
had  never  before  seen)  opened  the  door  to  her.  Upon  this,  she 
induced  a  gentleman  to  watch  in  the  adjoining  room  during  the 
night ;  and  toward  morning,  hearing  a  foot  upon  the  stairs,  he 
opened  the  door  and  discovered  the  black  servant  carrying  up 
a  coal-scuttle  full  of  coals,  for  the  purpose,  as  he  said,  of  light- 
ing his  mistress's  fire.  As  this  motive  did  not  seem  very  prob- 
able, the  coals  were  examined,  and  a  knife  found  hidden  among 
them,  with  which,  he  afterward  confessed,  he  intended  to  have 
murdered  his  mistress,  provided  she  made  any  resistance  to  a 
design  he  had  formed  of  robbing  her  of  a  large  sum  of  money 
which  he  was  aware  she  had  that  day  received. 

The  following  case  has  been  quoted  in  several  medical  works, 
at  least  in  works  written  by  learned  doctors,  and  on  that  account 
I  should  not  mention  it  here,  but  for  the  purpose  of  remarking 
on  the  extraordinary  facility  with  which,  while  they  do  not  ques- 
tion the  fact,  they  dispose  of  the  mystery  : — 

Mr.  D  ,  of  Cumberland,  when  a  youth,  came  to  Edin- 
burgh, for  the  purpose  of  attending  college,  and  was  placed 
under  the  care  of  his  uncle  and  aunt,  Major  and  Mrs.  Griffiths, 
who  then  resided  in  the  castle.  When  the  fine  weather  came, 
the  young  man  was  in  the  habit  of  making  frequent  excursions 
with  others  of  his  own  age  and  pursuits ;  and  one  afternoon  he 
mentioned  that  they  had  formed  a  fishing-party,  and  had  be- 
spoken a  boat  for  the  ensuing  day.  Nonobjections  were  made 
to  this  plan ;  but  in  the  middle  of  the  night,  Mrs.  Griffiths 
screamed  out,  "  The  boat  is  sinking  !  —  oh,  save  them  I"  Her 


WARNINGS. 


73 


husband  said  he  supposed  she  had  been  thinking  of  the  fishing- 
party,  but  she  declared  she  had  never  thought  about  it  at  all, 
and  soon  fell  asleep  again.  But,  ere  long,  she  awoke  a  second 
time,  crying  out  that  she  M  saw  the  boat  sinking  !"  —  M  It  must 
have  been  the  remains  of  the  impression  made  by  the  other 
dream,"  she  suggested  to  her  husband,  "for  I  have  no  uneasi- 
ness whatever  about  the  fishing-party."  But  on  going  to  sleep 
once  more,  her  husband  was  again  disturbed  by  her  cries : 
**  They  are  gone  !"  she  said,  "  the  boat  has  sunk  !"  She  now 
really  became  alarmed,,  and,  without  waiting  for  morning,  she 

threw  on  her  dressing-gown,  and  went  to  Mr.  D  ,  who  was 

still  in  bed,  and  whom  with  much  difficulty  she  persuaded  to 
relinquish  his  proposed  excursion.  He  consequently  sent  his 
servant  to  Leith  with  an  excuse,  and  the  party  embarked  with- 
out him.  The  day  was  extremely  fine  when  they  put  to  sea, 
but  some  hours  afterward  a  storm  arose,  in  which  the  boat 
foundered  —  nor  did  any  one  of  the  number  survive  to  tell 
the  tale ! 

"  This  dream  is  easily  accounted  for,"  say  the  learned  gen- 
tlemen above  alluded  to,  "  from  the  dread  all  women  have  of 
the  water,  and  the  danger  that  attends  boating  on  the  frith  of 
Forth !"  Now,  I  deny  that  all  women  have  a  dread  of  the 
water,  and  there  is  not  the  slightest  reason  for  concluding  that 
Mrs.  Griffiths  had.  At  all  events,  she  affirms  that  she  felt  no 
uneasiness  at  all  about  the  party,  and  one  might  take  leave  to 
think  that  her  testimony  upon  that  subject  is  of  more  value  than 
that  of  persons  who  never  had  any  acquaintance  with  her,  and 
who  were  not  so  much  as  born  at  the  time  the  circumstance 
occurred,  which  was  in  the  year  1731.  Besides,  if  Mrs.  Grif- 
fiths's  dread  arose  simply  from  "  the  dread  all  women  have  of 
the  water,"  and  that  its  subsequent  verification  was  a  mere 
coincidence,  since  women  constantly  risk  their  persons  for 
voyages  and  boating  excursions,  such  dreams  should  be  ex- 
tremely frequent  —  the  fact  of  there  being  any  accident  im- 
pending or  not,  having,  according  to  this  theory,  no  relation 
whatever  to  the  phenomenon.  And  as  for  the  danger  that 
attends  boating  on  the  frith  of  Forth,  we  must  naturally  sup- 

4 


74 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


pose  that,  had  it  been  considered  so  imminent,  Major  Griffiths 
would  have  at  least  endeavored  to  dissuade  a  youth  that  was 
placed  under  his  protection  from  risking  his  life  so  imprudently. 

It  would  be  equally  reasonable  to  explain  away  Dr.  W  *s 

dream,  by  saying  that  all  gentlemen  who  have  to  ride  across 
commons  are  in  great  dread  of  encountering  a  bull  —  commons 
in  general  being  infested  by  that  animal ! 

Miss  D  ,  a  friend  of  mine,  was  some  time  since  invited  to 

join  a  pic-nic  excursion  into  the  country.  Two  nights  before 
the  day  fixed  for  the  expedition,  she  dreamed  that  the  carriage 
she  was  to  go  in  was  overturned  down  a  precipice.  Impressed 
with  her  dream,  she  declined  the  excursion,  confessing  her  rea- 
son, and  advising  the  rest  of  the  party  to  relinquish  their 
project.  They  laughed  at  her,  and  persisted  in  their  scheme. 
When,  subsequently,  she  went  to  inquire  how  they  had  spent 
the  day,  she  found  the  ladies  confined  to  their  beds  from  inju- 
ries received,  the  carriage  having  been  overturned  down  a  pre- 
cipice.   Still,  this  was  only  a  coincidence  ! 

Another  specimen  of  the  haste  with  which  people  are  willing 
to  dispose  of  what  they  do  not  understand,  is  afforded  by  a  case 
that  occurred  not  many  years  since  in  the  north  of  Scotland, 
where  a  murder  having  been  committed,  a  man  came  forward, 
saying  that  he  had  dreamed  that  the  pack  of  the  murdered  ped- 
lar was  hidden  in  a  certain  spot ;  where,  on  a  search  being 
made,  it  was  actually  found.  They  at  first  concluded  he  was 
himself  the  assassin,  but  the  real  criminal  was  afterward  dis- 
covered ;  and  it  being  asserted  (though  I  have  been  told  erro- 
neously) that  the  two  men  had  passed  some  time  together,  since 
the  murder,  in  a  state  of  intoxication,  it  was  decided  that  the 
crime  and  the  place  of  concealment  had  been  communicated  to 
the  pretended  dreamer  —  and  all  who  thought  otherwise  were 
laughed  at;  "  for  why,"  say  the  rationalists,  "  should  not  Provi- 
dence have  so  ordered  the  dream  as  to  have  prevented  the 
murder  altogether]" 

Who  can  answer  that  question,  and  whither  would  such  a 
discussion  lead  us  ?  Moreover,  if  this  faculty  of  presentiment 
be  a  natural  one,  though  only  imperfectly  and  capriciously  de- 


WARNINGS. 


75 


veloped,  there  may  have  been  no  design  in  the  matter :  it  is  an 
accident,  just  in  the  same  sense  as  an  illness  is  an  accident; 
that  is,  not  without  cause,  but  without  a  cause  that  we  can  pen- 
etrate. If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  have  recourse  to  the  inter- 
vention of  spiritual  beings,  it  may  be  answered  that  we  are 
entirely  ignorant  of  the  conditions  under  which  any  such  com- 
munication is  possible ;  and  that  we  can  not  therefore  come  to 
any  conclusions  as  to  why  so  much  is  done,  and  no  more. 

But  there  is  another  circumstance  to  be  observed  in  consid- 
ering the  case,  which  is,  that  the  dreamer  is  said  to  have  passed 
some  days  in  a  state  of  intoxication.  Now,  even  supposing  this 
had  been  true,  it  is  well  known  that  the  excitement  of  the  brain 
caused  by  intoxication  has  occasionally  produced  a  very  remark- 
able exaltation  of  certain  faculties.  It  is  by  means  of  either 
intoxicating  draughts  or  vapors  that  the  soothsayers  of  Lapland 
and  Siberia  place  themselves  in  a  condition  to  vaticinate ;  and 
we  have  every  reason  to  believe  that  drugs,  producing  similar 
effects,  were  resorted  to  by  the  thaumaturgists  of  old,  and  by 
the  witches  of  later  days,  of  which  I  shall  have  more  to  say 
hereafter.  But,  as  a  case  in  point,  I  may  here  allude  to  the 
phenomena  exhibited  in  a  late  instance  of  the  application  of 
ether,  by  Professor  Simpson,  of  Edinburgh,  to  a  lady  who  was 
at  the  moment  under  circumstances  not  usually  found  very 
agreeable.  She  said  that  she  was  amusing  herself  delightfully 
by  playing  over  a  set  of  quadrilles  which  she  had  known  in  her 
youth,  but  had  long  forgotten  them ;  but  she  now  perfectly 
remembered  them,  and  had  played  them  over  several  times. 
Here  was  an  instance  of  the  exaltation  of  a  faculty  from  intoxi- 
cation, similar  to  that  of  the  woman  who,  in  her  delirium,  spoke 
a  language  which  she  had  only  heard  in  her  childhood,  and  of 
which,  in  her  normal  state,  she  had  no  recollection. 

That  the  inefficiency  of  the  communication,  or  presentiment, 
or  whatever  it  may  be,  is  no  argument  against  the  fact  of  such 
dreams  occurring,  I  can  safely  assert,  from  cases  which  have 
come  under  my  own  knowledge.  A  professional  gentleman, 
whose  name  would  be  a  warrant  for  the  truth  of  whatever  he 
relates,  told  me  the  following  circumstance  regarding  himself. 


76 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


He  was,  not  very  long  since,  at  the  seaside  with  his  family,  and, 
among  the  rest,  he  had  with  him  one  of  his  sons,  a  boy  about 
twelve  years  of  age,  who  was  in  the  habit  of  bathing  daily,  his 
father  accompanying  him  to  the  water-side.  This  had  continued 
during  the  whole  of  their  visit,  and  no  idea  of  danger  or  acci- 
dent  had  ever  occurred  to  anybody.    On  the  day  preceding  the 

one  appointed  for  their  departure,  Mr.  H  ,  the  gentleman 

in  question,  felt  himself  after  breakfast  surprised  by  an  unu- 
sual drowsiness,  which,  having  vainly  struggled  to  overcome, 
he  at  length  fell  asleep  in  his  chair,  and  dreamed  that  he  was 
attending  his  son  to  the  bath  as  usual,  when  he  suddenly  saw 
the  boy  drowning,  and  that  he  himself  had  rushed  into  the 
water,  dressed  as  he  was,  and  brought  him  ashore.  Though 
he  was  quite  conscious  of  the  dream  when  he  awoke,  he  at- 
tached no  importance  to  it;  he  considered  it  merely  a  dream  — 
no  more  ;  and  when,  some  hours  afterward,  the  boy  came  into 
the  room,  and  said,  "  Now,  papa,  it's  time  to  go  —  this  will  be 
my  last  bath" — his  morning's  vision  did  not  even  recur  to  him. 
They  walked  down  to  the  sea,  as  usual,  and  the  boy  went  into 
the  water,  while  the  father  stood  composedly  watching  him 
from  the  beach,  when  suddenly  the  child  lost  his  footing,  a  wave 
had  caught  him,  and  the  danger  of  his  being  carried  away  was 
so  imminent,  that,  without  even  waiting  to  take  off  his  great- 
coat, boots,  or  hat,  Mr.  H  rushed  into  the  water,  and  was 

only  just  in  time  to  save  him. 

Here  is  a  case  of  undoubted  authenticity,  which  I  take  to  be 
an  instance  of  clear-seeing,  or  second-sight,  in  sleep.  The  spirit, 
with  its  intuitive  faculty,  saw  what  was  impending ;  the  sleeper 
remembered  his  dream,  but  the  intellect  did  not  accept  the 
warning;  and,  whether  that  warning  was  merely  a  subjective 
process  —  the  clear-seeing  of  the  spirit  —  or  whether  it  was 
effected  by  any  external  agency,  the  free-will  of  the  person 
concerned  was  not  interfered  with. 

I  quote  the  ensuing  similar  case  from  the  "  Frankfort  Jour- 
nal," June  25,  1837:  "A  singular  circumstance  is  said  to  be 
connected  with  the  late  attempt  on  the  life  of  the  archbishop 
of  Autun.    The  two  nights  preceding  the  attack,  the  prelate 


WARNINGS. 


77 


dreamed  that  he  saw  a  man  who  was  making  repeated  efforts 
to  take  away  his  life,  and  he  awoke  in  extreme  terror  and  agi- 
tation from  the  exertions  he  had  made  to  escape  the  danger. 
The  features  and  appearance  of  the  man  were  so  clearly  im 
printed  on  his  memory,  that  he  recognised  him  the  moment  his 
eye  fell  upon  him,  which  happened  as  he  was  coming  out  of 
church.  The  bishop  hid  his  face,  and  called  his  attendants,  but 
the  man  had  fired  before  he  could  make  known  his  apprehen- 
sions. Facts  of  this  description  are  far  from  uncommon.  It 
appears  that  the  assassin  had  entertained  designs  against  the 
lives  of  the  bishops  of  Dijon,  Burgos,  and  Nevers." 

The  following  case,  which  occurred  a  few  years  since  in  the 
north  of  England,  and  which  I  have  from  the  best  authority,  is 
remarkable  from  the  inexorable  fatality  which  brought  about 

the  fulfilment  of  the  dream  :  Mrs.  K  ,  a  lady  of  family  and 

fortune  in  Yorkshire,  said  to  her  son,  one  morning  on  descend- 
ing to  breakfast :  "  Henry,  what  are  you  going  to  do  to-day  V 

"  I  am  going  to  hunt,"  replied  the  young  man." 

"  I  am  very  glad  of  it,"  she  answered.  "  I  should  not  like 
you  to  go  shooting,  for  I  dreamed  last  night  that  you  did  so, 
and  were  shot.  The  son  answered,  gayly,  that  he  would  take 
care  not  to  be  shot,  and  the  hunting  party  rode  away ;  but,  in 
the  middle  of  the  day,  they  returned,  not  having  found  any 

sport.    Mr.  B  ,  a  visiter  in  the  house,  then  proposed  that 

they  should  go  out  with  their  guns  and  try  to  find  some  wood- 
cocks. "I  will  go  with  you,"  returned  the  young  man,  "but 
I  must  not  shoot,  to-day,  myself ;  for  my  mother  dreamed  last 
night  I  was  shot ;  and,  although  it  is  but  a  dream,  she  would 
be  uneasy." 

They  went,  Mr.  B  with  his  gun,  and  Mr.  K  with- 
out. But  shortly  afterward  the  beloved  son  was  brought  home 
dead  :  a  charge  from  the  gun  of  his  companion  had  struck  him 
in  the  eye,  entered  his  brain,  and  killed  him  on  the  spot.  Mr. 

B  ,  the  unfortunate  cause  of  this  accident  and  also  the  nar- 

rater  of  it,  died  but  a  few  weeks  since. 

It  is  well  known  that  the  murder  of  Mr.  Percival,  by  Bel- 
lingham,  was  seen  in  sleep  by  a  gentleman  at  York,  who  actu- 


78 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


ally  went  to  London  in  consequence  of  his  dream,  which  was 
several  times  repeated.  He  arrived  too  late  to  prevent  the 
calamity  ;  neither  would  he  have  been  believed,  had  he  arrived 
earlier. 

In  the  year  1461,  a  merchant  was  travelling  toward  Rome 
by  Sienna,  when  he  dreamed  that  his  throat  was  cut.  He  com- 
municated his  dream  to  the  innkeeper,  who  did  not  like  it,  and 
advised  him  to  pray  and  confess.  He  did  so,  and  then  rode 
forth,  and  was  presently  attacked  by  the  priest  he  had  confessed 
to,  who  had  thus  learned  his  apprehensions.  He  killed  the 
merchant,  but  was  betrayed,  and  disappointed  of  his  gains,  by 
the  horse  taking  fright  and  running  back  to  the  inn  with  the 
money-bags. 

I  have  related  this  story,  though  not  a  new  one,  on  account 
of  its  singular  resemblance  to  the  following,  which  I  take  from 
a  newspaper  paragraph,  but  which  I  find  mentioned  as  a  fact  in 
a  continental  publication  :  — 

"Singular  Verification  of  a  Dream.  —  A  letter  from 
Hamburgh  contains  the  following  curious  story  relative  to  the 
verification  of  a  dream.  It  appears  that  a  locksmith's  appren- 
tice, one  morning  lately,  informed  his  master  (Claude  Soller) 
that  on  the  previous  night  he  dreamed  that  he  had  been  assas- 
sinated on  the  road  to  Bergsdorff,  a  little  town  at  about  two 
hours'  distance  from  Hamburgh.  The  master  laughed  at  the 
young  man's  credulity,  and,  to  prove  that  he  himself  had  little 
faith  in  dreams,  insisted  upon  sending  him  to  Bergsdorff  with 
one  hundred  and  forty  rix  dollars,  which  he  owed  to  his  brother- 
in-law,  who  resided  in  the  town.  The  apprentice,  after  in  vain 
imploring  his  master  to  change  his  intention,  was  compelled  to 
set  out  at  about  11  o'clock.  On  arriving  at  the  village  of  Bill- 
waerder,  about  half-way  between  Hamburgh  and  Bergsdorff, 
he  recollected  his  dream  with  terror  ;  but  perceiving  the  baillie 
of  the  village  at  a  little  distance,  talking  to  some  of  his  work- 
men, he  accosted  him,  and  acquainted  him  with  his  singular 
dream,  at  the  same  time  requesting  that,  as  he  had  money 
about  his  person,  one  of  his  workmen  might  be  allowed  to 
accompany  him  for  protection  across  a  small  wood  which  lay  in 


WARNINGS. 


79 


his  way.  The  baillie  smiled,  and,  in  obedience  to  his  orders, 
one  of  his  men  set  out  with  the  young  apprentice.  The  next 
day,  the  corpse  of  the  latter  was  conveyed  by  some  peasants  to 
the  baillie,  along  with  a  reaping-hook  which  had  been  found  by 
his  side,  and  with  which  the  throat  of  the  murdered  youth  had 
been  cut.  The  baillie  immediately  recognised  the  instrument 
as  one  which  he  had  on  the  previous  day  given  to  the  workman 
who  had  served  as  the  apprentice's  guide,  for  the  purpose  of 
pruning  some  willows.  The  workman  was  apprehended,  and, 
on  being  confronted  with  the  body  of  his  victim,  made  a  full 
confession  of  his  crime,  adding  that  the  recital  of  the  dream  had 
alone  prompted  him  to  commit  the  horrible  act.  The  assassin, 
who  is  thirty-five  years  of  age,  is  a  native  of  Billwaerder,  and, 
previously  to  the  perpetration  of  the  murder,  had  always  borne 
an  irreproachable  character." 

The  life  of  the  great  Harvey  was  saved  by  the  governor  of 
Dover  refusing  to  allow  him  to  embark  for  the  continent  with 
his  friends.  The  vessel  was  lost,  with  all  on  board ;  and  the 
governor  confessed  to  him,  that  he  had  detained  him  in  con- 
sequence of  an  injunction  he  had  received  in  a  dream  to 
do  so. 

There  is  a  very  curious  circumstance  related  by  Mr.  Ward, 
in  his  "  Illustrations  of  Human  Life,"  regarding  the  late  Sir 
Evan  Nepean,  which  I  believe  is  perfectly  authentic.  I  have 
at  least  been  assured,  by  persons  well  acquainted  with  him, 
that  he  himself  testified  to  its  truth. 

Being,  at  the  time,  secretary  to  the  admiralty,  he  found  him- 
self one  night  unable  to  sleep,  and  urged  by  an  undefinable 
feeling  that  he  must  rise,  though  it  was  then  only  two  o'clock. 
He  accordingly  did  so,  and  went  into  the  park,  and  from  that 
to  the  home  office,  which  he  entered  by  a  private  door,  of  which 
he  had  the  key.  He  had  no  objeet  in  doing  this ;  and,  to  pass 
the  time,  he  took  up  a  newspaper  that  was  lying  on  the  table, 
and  there  read  a  paragraph  to  the  effect  that  a  reprieve  had 
been  despatched  to  York,  for  the  men  condemned  for  coining. 

The  question  occurred  to  him,  Was  it  indeed  despatched  ? 
He  examined  the  books  and  found  it  was  not ;  and  it  was  only 


80 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


by  the  most  energetic  proceedings  that  the  thing  was  carried 
through,  and  reached  York  in  time  to  save  the  men. 

Is  not  this  like  the  agency  of  a  protecting  spirit,  urging  Sir 
Evan  to  this  discovery,  in  order  that  these  men  might  be  spared, 
or  that  those  concerned  might  escape  the  remorse  they  would 
have  suffered  for  their  criminal  neglect  1 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  that  somnambules  of  the  highest  order 
believe  themselves  attended  by  a  protecting  spirit.  To  those 
who  do  not  believe,  because  they  have  never  witnessed,  the 
phenomena  of  somnambulism,  or  who  look  upon  the  disclosures 
of  persons  in  that  state  as  the  mere  raving  of  hallucination,  this 
authority  will  necessarily  have  no  weight;  but  even  to  such 
persons  the  universal  coincidence  must  be  considered  worthy 
of  observation,  though  it  be  regarded  only  as  a  symptom  of 
disease.  I  believe  I  have  remarked  elsewhere,  that  many  per- 
sons, who  have  not  the  least  tendency  to  somnambulism  or  any 
proximate  malady,  have  all  their  lives  an  intuitive  feeling  of 
such  a  guardianship ;  and,  not  to  mention  Socrates  and  the 
ancients,  there  are,  besides,  numerous  recorded  cases  in  mod- 
ern times,  in  which  persons,  not  somnambulic,  have  declared 
themselves  to  have  seen  and  held  communication  with  their 
spiritual  protector. 

The  case  of  the  girl  called  Ludwiger,  who,  in  her  infancy, 
had  lost  her  speech  and  the  use  of  her  limbs,  and  who  was  earn- 
estly committed  by  her  mother,  when  dying,  to  the  care  of  her 
elder  sisters,  is  known  to  many.  These  young  women  piously 
fulfilled  their  engagement  till  the  wedding-day  of  one  of  them 
caused  them  to  forget  their  charge.  On  recollecting  it,  at 
length,  they  hastened  home,  and  found  the  girl,  to  their  amaze- 
ment, sitting  up  in  her  bed,  and  she  told  them  that  her  mother 
had  been  there  and  given  her  food.  She  never  spoke  again,  and 
soon  after  died.  This  circumstance  occurred  at  Dessau,  not 
many  years  since,  and  is,  according  to  Schubert,  a  perfectly- 
established  fact  in  that  neighborhood.  The  girl  at  no  other 
period  of  her  life  exhibited  any  similar  phenomena,  nor  had  she 
ever  displayed  any  tendency  to  spectral  illusions. 

The  wife  of  a  respectable  citizen,  named  Arnold,  at  Heil- 


WARNINGS. 


HI 


bronn,  held  constant  communications  with  her  protecting  spirit, 
who  warned  her  of  impending  dangers,  approaching  visiters, 
and  so  forth.  He  was  only  once  visible  to  her,  and  it  was  in 
the  form  of  an  old  man ;  but  his  presence  was  felt  by  others  as 
well  as  herself,  and  they  were  sensible  that  the  air  was  stirred, 
as  by  a  breath. 

Jung  Stilling  publishes  a  similar  account,  which  was  be- 
queathed to  him  by  a  very  worthy  and  pious  minister  of  the 
church.  The  subject  of  the  guardianship  was  his  own  wife,  and 
the  spirit  first  appeard  to  her  after  her  marriage,  in  the  year 
1799,  as  a  child,  attired  in  a  white  robe,  while  she  was  busy  in 
her  bed-chamber.  She  stretched  out  her  hand  to  take  hold  of 
the  figure,  but  it  disappeared.  It  frequently  visited  her  after- 
ward, and  in  answer  to  her  inquiries  it  said,  "  I  died  in  my 
childhood!"  It  came  to  her  at  all  hours,  whether  alone  or  in 
company,  and  not  only  at  home,  but  elsewhere,  and  even  when 
travelling,  assisting  her  when  in  danger;  it  sometimes  floated 
in  the  air,  spake  to  her  in  its  own  language,  which  somehow, 
she  says,  she  understood,  aud  could  speak,  too  ;  and  it  was  once 
seen  by  another  person.  He  bade  her  call  him  Immanuel.  She 
earnestly  begged  him  to  show  himself  to  her  husband,  but  he 
alleged  that  it  would  make  him  ill,  and  cause  his  death.  On 
asking  him  wherefore,  he  answered,  "  Few  persons  are  able  to 
see  such  things." 

Her  two  children,  one  six  years  old,  and  the  other  younger, 
saw  this  figure  as  well  as  herself. 

Schubert,  in  his  "  Geschichte  der  Seele,"  relates  that  the 
ecclesiastical  councillor  Schwartz,  of  Heidelberg,  when  about 
twelve  years  of  age,  and  at  a  time  that  he  was  learning  the 
Greek  language,  but  knew  very  little  about  it,  dreamed  that  his 
grandmother,  a  very  pious  woman,  to  whom  he  had  been  much 
attached,  appeared  to  him,  and  unfolded  a  parchment  inscribed 
with  Greek  characters  which  foretold  the  fortunes  of  his  future 
life.  He  read  it  off  with  as  much  facility  as  if  it  had  been  in 
German,  but  being  dissatisfied  with  some  particulars  of  the  pre- 
diction, he  begged  they  might  be  changed.  His  grandmother 
answered  him  in  Greek,  whereupon  he  awoke,  remembering 

4*  ' 


82 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


the  dream,  but,  in  spite  of  all  the  efforts  to  arrest  them,  he  was 
unable  to  recall  the  particulars  the  parchment  had  contained. 
The  answer  of  his  grandmother,  however,  he  was  able  to  grasp 
before  it  had  fled  his  memory,  and  he  wrote  down  the  words ; 
but  the  meaning  of  them  he  could  not  discover  without  the 
assistance  of  his  grammar  and  lexicon.  Being  interpreted,  they 
proved  to  be  these  :  "  As  it  is  prophesied  to  me,  so  I  prophesy 
to  thee  \"  He  had  written  the  words  in  a  volume  of  Gessner's 
works,  being  the  first  thing  he  laid  his  hand  on ;  and  he  often 
philosophized  on  them  in  later  days,  when  they  chanced  to  meet 
m  his  eye.  How,  he  says,  should  he  have  been  able  to  read  and 
produce  that  in  his  sleep,  which,  in  his  waking  state,  he  would 
have  been  quite  incapable  of?  "Even  long  after,  when  I  left 
school,"  he  adds,  "  I  could  scarcely  have  put  together  such  a 
sentence  ;  and  it  is  extremely  remarkable  that  the  feminine 
form  was  observed  in  conformity  with  the  sex  of  the  speaker." 

The  Words  Were  these  :   TaSra  'Kptja^wSriOeta-a  Xpr?<T/*a)Jta>  cot. 

Grotius  relates,  that  when  Mr.  de  Saumaise  was  councillor 
of  the  parliament  at  Dijon,  a  person,  who  knew  not  a  word  of 
Greek,  brought  him  a  paper  on  which  was  written  some  words 
in  that  language,  but  not  in  the  character.  He  said  that  a  voice 
had  uttered  them  to  him  in  the  night,  and  that  he  had  written 
them  down,  imitating  the  sound  as  well  as  he  could.  Mons  de 
Saumaise  made  out  that  the  signification  of  the  words  was, 
"  Begone  !  do  you  not  see  that  death  impends  V*  Without  com- 
prehending what  danger  was  predicted,  the  person  obeyed  the 
mandate  and  departed.  On  that  night  the  house  that  he  had 
been  lodging  in  fell  to  the  ground. 

The  difficulty  in  these  two  cases  is  equally  great,  apply  to  it 
whatever  explanation  we  may  ;  for  even  if  the  admonitions  pro- 
ceeded from  some  friendly  guardian,  as  we  might  be  inclined  to 
conclude,  it  is  not  easy  to  conceive  why  they  should  have  been 
communicated  in  a  language  the  persons  did  not  understand. 

After  the  death  of  Dante,  it  was  discovered  that  the  thirteenth 
canto  of  the  "  Paradiso"  was  missing;  great  search  was  made  for 
it,  but  in  vain  ;  and  to  the  regret  of  everybody  concerned,  it  was 
at  length  concluded  that  it  had  either  never  been  written,  or  had 


WARNINGS. 


been  destroyed.  The  quest  was  therefore  given  up,  and  some 
months  had  elapsed,  when  Pietro  Allighieri,  his  son,  dreamed 
that  his  father  had  appeared  to  him  and  *told  him  that  if  he 
removed  a  certain  panel  near  the  window  of  the  room  in 
which  he  had  been  accustomed  to  write,  the  thirteenth  canto 
would  be  found.  Pietro  told  his  dream,  and  was  laughed  at,  of 
course ;  however,  as  the  canto  did  not  turn  up,  it  was  thought 
as  well  to  examine  the  spot  indicated  in  the  dream.  The  panel 
was  removed,  and  there  lay  the  missing  canto  behind  it ;  much 
mildewed,  but,  fortunately,  still  legible. 

If  it  be  true  that  the  dead  do  return  sometimes  to  solve  our 
perplexities,  here  was  not  an  unworthy  occasion  for  the  exer- 
cise of  such  a  power.  We  can  imagine  the  spirit  of  the  great 
poet  still  clinging  to  the  memory  of  his  august  work,  immor- 
tal as  himself — the  record  of  those  high  thoughts  which  can 
never  die. 

There  are  numerous  curious  accounts  extant  of  persons  be- 
ing awakened  by  the  calling  of  a  voice  which  announced  some 
impending  danger  to  them.  Three  boys  are  sleeping  in  the 
wing  of  a  castle,  and  the  eldest  is  awakened  by  what  appears  to 
him  to  be  the  voice  of  his  father  calling  him  by  name.  He  rises 
and  hastens  to  his  parent's  chamber,  situated  in  another  part  of 
the  building,  where  he  finds  his  father  asleep,  who,  on  being 
awakened,  assures  him  that  he  had  not  called  him,  and  the  boy 
returns  to  bed.  But  he  is  scarcely  asleep,  before  the  circum- 
stance recurs,  and  he  goes  again  to  his  father  with  the  same 
result.  A  third  time  he  falls  asleep,  and  a  third  time  he  is 
aroused  by  the  voice,  too  distinctly  heard  for  him  to  doubt 
his  senses ;  and  now,  alarmed  at  he  knows  not  what,  he  rises 
and  takes  his  brothers  with  him  to  his  father's  chamber ;  and 
while  they  are  discussing  the  singularity  of  the  circumstance,  a 
crash  is  heard,  and  that  wing  of  the  castle  in  which  the  boys 
slept  falls  to  the  ground.  This  incident  excited  so  much  atten- 
tion in  Germany  that  it  was  recorded  in  a  ballad. 

It  is  related  by  Amyraldus,  that  Monsieur  Calignan,  chancel- 
lor of  Navarre,  dreamed  three  successive  times  in  one  night, 
at  Berne,  that  a  voice  called  to  him  and  bade  him  quit  the  place, 


64 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


as  the  plague  would  soon  break  out  in  that  town ;  that,  in  con- 
sequence, he  removed  his  family,  and  the  result  justified  his 
flight. 

o 

A  German  physician  relates,  that  a  patient  of  his  told  him,  that 
he  dreamed  repeatedly,  one  night,  that  a  voice  bade  him  go  to 
his  hop-garden,  as  there  were  thieves  there.  He  resisted  the  in- 
junction some  time,  till  at  length  he  was  told  that  if  he  delayed 
any  longer  he  would  lose  all  his  produce.  Thus  urged,  he 
went  at  last,  and  arrived  just  in  time  to  see  the  thieves,  loaded 
with  sacks,  making  away  from  the  opposite  side  of  the  hop- 
ground. 

A  Madame  Von  Militz  found  herself  under  the  necessity  of 
parting  with  a  property  which  had  long  been  in  her  family. 
When  the  bargain  was  concluded,  and  she  was  preparing  to 
remove,  she  solicited  permission  of  the  new  proprietor  to  carry 
away  with  her  some  little  relic  as  a  memento  of  former  days — 
a  request  which  he  uncivilly  denied.  On  one  of  the  nights 
that  preceded  her  departure  from  the  home  of  her  ancestors, 
she  dreamed  that  a  voice  spoke  to  her,  and  bade  her  go  to  tho 
cellar  and  open  a  certain  part  of  the  wall,  where  she  would  find 
something  that  nobody  would  dispute  with  her.  Impressed  with 
her  dream,  she  sent  for  a  bricklayer,  who,  after  long  seeking, 
discovered  a  place  which  appeared  less  solid  than  the  rest.  A 
hole  was  made,  and  in  a  niche  was  found  a  goblet,  which  con- 
tained something  that  looked  like  a  pot  pourri.  On  shaking  out 
the  contents,  there  lay  at  the  bottom  a  small  ring,  on  which  was 
engraven  the  name  Anna  Von  Militz. 

A  friend  of  mine,  Mr.  Charles  Kirkpatrick  Sharpe,  has 
some  coins  that  were  found  exactly  in  the  same  manner. 
The  child  of  a  Mr.  Christison,  in  whose  house  his  father  was 
lodging,  in  the  year  1781,  dreamed  that  there  was  a  treasure 
hid  in  the  cellar.  Her  father  had  no  faith  in  the  dream ;  but 
Mr.  Sharpe  had  the  curiosity  to  have  the  place  dug  up,  and  a 
copper  pot  was  found,  full  of  coins. 

A  very  singular  circumstance  was  related  to  me  by  Mr. 

J  ,  as  having  occurred  not  long  since  to  himself.    A  tonic 

had  been  prescribed  to  him  by  his  physician,  for  some  slight  de- 


WARNINGS. 


85 


rangement  of  the  system,  and  as  there  was  no  good  chemist  in 
the  village  he  inhabited,  he  was  in  the  habit  of  walking  to  a 
town  about  five  miles  off,  to  get  the  bottle  filled  as  occasion  re- 
quired. One  night,  that  iie  had  been  to  M  for  this  pur- 
pose, and  had  obtained  his  last  supply,  for  he  was  now  recov- 
ered, and  about  to  discontinue  the  medicine,  a  voice  seemed  to 
warn  him  that  some  great  danger  was  impending,  his  life  was 
in  jeopardy  ;  then  he  heard,  but  not  with  his  outward  ear,  a 
beautiful  prayer.  "  It  was  not  myself  that  prayed,"  he  said, 
"  the  prayer  was  far  beyond  anything  I  am  capable  of  compo- 
sing—  it  spoke  of  me  in  the  third  person,  always  as  he; 
and  supplicated  that  for  the  sake  of  my  widowed  mother  this 
calamity  might  be  averted.  My  father  had  been  dead  some 
months.  I  was  sensible  of  all  this,  yet  I  can  not  say  whether 
I  was  asleep  or  awake.  When  I  rose  in  the  morning,  the 
whole  was  present  to  my  mind,  although  I  had  slept  soundly  in 
the  interval ;  I  felt,  however,  as  if  there  was  some  mitigation  of 
the  calamity,  though  what  the  danger  was  with  which  I  was 
threatened,  I  had  no  notion.  When  I  was  dressed,  I  prepared 
to  take  my  medicine,  but  on  lifting  the  bottle,  I  fancied  that  the 
color  was  not  the  same  as  usual.  I  looked  again,  and  hes- 
itated, and  finally,  instead  of  taking  two  tablespoonfuls,  which 
was  my  accustomed  dose,  I  took  but  one.  Fortunate  it  was 
that  I  did  so  ;  the  apothecary  had  made  a  mistake  ;  the  drug 
was  poison  ;  I  was  seized  with  a  violent  vomiting,  and  other 
alarming  symptoms,  from  which  I  was  with  difficulty  recovered. 
Had  I  taken  the  two  spoonfuls,  I  should,  probably,  not  have 
survived  to  tell  the  tale." 

The  manner  in  which  I  happened  to  obtain  these  particulars 
is  not  uninteresting.  I  was  spending  the  evening  with  Mr. 
Wordsworth,,  at  Ridal,  when  he  mentioned  to  me  that  a  stran- 
ger, who  had  called  on  him  that  morning,  had  quoted  two  lines 
from  his  poem  of  "  Laodamia,"  which,  he  said,  to  him  had  a 
peculiar  interest.    They  were  these  :  — 

u  The  invisible  world  with  thee  hath  sympathized ; 
Be  thy  affections  raised  and  solemnized." 


6G 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


"  I  do  not  know  what  lie  alludes  to,"  said  Mr.  Wordsworth  ; 
"  but  he  gave  me  to  understand  that  these  lines  had  a  deep 
meaning  for  him,  and  that  he  had  himself  been  the  subject  of 
such  a.  sympathy." 

Upon  this,  I  sought  the  stranger,  whose  address  the  poet  gave 
me,  and  thus  learned  the  above  particulars  from  himself.  His 
very  natural  persuasion  was,  that  the  interceding  spirit  was  his 
father.    He  described  the  prayer  as  one  of  earnest  anguish. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  instances  of  warning  that  has 

come  to  my  knowledge,  is  that  of  Mr.  M  ,  of  Kingsborough. 

This  gentleman,  being  on  a  voyage  to  America,  dreamed,  one 
night,  that  a  little  old  man  came  into  his  cabin  and  said,  "  Get 

up  !    Your  life  is  in  danger  !"    Upon  which,  Mr.  M  awoke  ; 

but  considering  it  to  be  only  a  dream,  he  soon  composed  him- 
self to  sleep  again.  The  dream,  however,  if  such  it  were,  re- 
curred, and  the  old  man  urged  him  still  more  strongly  to  get 
up  directly  ;  but  he  still  persuaded  himself  it  was  only  a  dream  ; 
and  after  listening  a  few  minutes,  and  hearing  nothing  to  alarm 
him,  he  turned  round  and  addressed  himself  once  more  to  sleep. 
But  now  the  old  man  appeared  again,  and  angrily  bade  him 
rise  instantly,  and  take  his  gun  and  ammunition  with  him,  for  he 
had  not  a  moment  to  lose.    The  injunction  was  now  so  distinct 

that  Mr.  M  felt  he  could  no  longer  resist  it ;  so  he  hastily 

dressed  himself,  took  his  gun,  and  ascended  to  the  deck,  where 
he  had  scarcely  arrived,  when  the  ship  struck  on  a  rock,  which 
he  and  several  others  contrived  to  reach.  The  place,  however, 
was  uninhabited,  and  but  for  his  gun,  they  would  never  have 
been  able  to  provide  themselves  with  food  till  a  vessel  arrived 
to  their  relief. 

Now  these  can  scarely  be  looked  upon  as  instances  of  clear- 
seeing,  or  of  second-sight  in  sleep,  which,  in  Denmark,  is  called 
Jirst-seeing,  I  believe  ;  for  in  neither  case  did  the  sleeper  per- 
ceive the  danger,  much  less  the  nature  of  it.  If,  therefore,  we 
refuse  to  attribute  them  to  some  external  protecting  influence, 
they  resolve  themselves  into  cases  of  vague  presentiment ;  but 
it  must  then  be  admitted  that  the  mode  of  the  manifestation  is 
very  extraordinary  ;  so  extraordinary,  indeed,  that  we  fall  into 


WARNINGS. 


87 


fully  as  great  a  difficulty  as  that  offered  by  the  supposition  of  a 
guardian  spirit. 

An  American  clergyman  told  me  that  an  old  woman,  with 
whom  he  was  acquainted,  who  had  two  sons,  heard  a  voice  say 
to  her  in  the  night,  "John's  dead  V*  This  was  her  eldest  son. 
Shortly  afterward,  the  news  of  his  death  arriving,  she  said  to 
the  person  who  communicated  the  intelligence  to  her,  "  If  John's 
dead,  then  I  know  that  David  is  dead,  too,  for  the  same  voice 
has  since  told  me  so ;"  and  the  event  proved  that  the  informa- 
tion, whence  ever  it  came,  was  correct. 

Not  many  years  since,  Captain  S  was  passing  a  night  at 

the  Manse  of  Strachur,  in  Argyleshire,  then  occupied  by  a  re- 
lation of  his  own  ;  shortly  after  he  retired,  the  bed-curtains 
were  opened,  and  somebody  looked  in  upon  him.  Supposing  it 
to  be  some  inmate  of  the  house,  who  was  not  aware  that  the 
bed  was  occupied,  he  took  no  notice  of  the  circumstance,  till  it 
being  two  or  three  times  repeated,  he  at  length  said,  "  What  do 
you  want  ?    Why  do  you  disturb  me  in  this  manner?" 

"  I  come,"  replied  a  voice,  "  to  tell  you,  that  this  day  twelve- 
month you  will  be  with  your  father  !" 

After  this,  Captain  S  was  no  more  disturbed.    In  the 

morning,  he  related  the  circumstance  to  his  host,  though,  being 
an  entire  disbeliever  in  all  such  phenomena,  without  attaching 
any  importance  to  the  warning. 

In  the  natural  course  of  events,  and  quite  irrespective  of  this 
visitation,  on  that  day  twelvemonth  he  was  again  at  the  Manse 
of  Strachur,  on  his  way  to  the  north,  for  which  purpose  it  was 
necessary  that  he  should  cross  the  ferry  to  Craigie.  The  day 
was,  however,  so  exceedingly  stormy,  that  his  friend  begged 
him  not  to  go ;  but  he  pleaded  his  business,  adding  that  he  was 
determined  not  to  be  withheld  from  his  intention  by  the  ghost, 
and,  although  the  minister  delayed  his  departure,  by  engaging 
him  in  a  game  of  backgammon,  he  at  length  started  up,  declar- 
ing he  could  stay  no  longer.  They,  therefore,  proceeded  to  the 
water,  but  they  found  the  boat  moored  to  the  side  of  the  lake, 
and  the  boatman  assured  them  that  it  would  be  impossible  to 
cross.    Captain  S  ,  however,  insisted,  and,  as  the  old  man 


68 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


was  firm  in  his  refusal,  he  became  somewhat  irritated,  and  laid 
his  cane  lightly  across  his  shoulders. 

"  It  ill  becomes  you,  sir,"  said  the  ferryman,  "  to  strike  an 
old  man  like  me  ;  but,  since  you  will  have  your  way,  you  must  j 
I  can  not  go  with  you,  but  my  son  will ;  but  you  will  never 
reach  the  other  side  ;  he  will  be  drowned,  and  you  too. 

The  boat  was  then  set  afloat,  and  Captain  S  ,  together 

with  his  horse  and  servant,  and  the  ferryman's  son,  embarked 
in  it. 

The  distance  was  not  great,  but  the  storm  was  tremendous , 
and,  after  having  with  great  difficulty  got  half  way  across  the 
lake,  it  was  found  impossible  to  proceed.  The  danger  of  tack- 
ing was,  of  course,  considerable ;  but,  since  they  could  not 
advance,  there  was  no  alternative  but  to  turn  back,  and  it  was 
resolved  to  attempt  it.  The  manoeuvre,  however,  failed ;  the 
boat  capsized,  and  they  were  all  precipitated  into  the  water. 

"You  keep  hold  of  the  horse  —  I  can  swim,"  said  Captain 
S  to  his  servant,  when  he  saw  what  was  about  to  happen. 

Being  an  excellent  swimmer,  and  the  distance  from  the  shore 
inconsiderable,  he  hoped  to  save  himself,  but  he  had  on  a  heavy 
top-coat,  with  boots  and  spurs.  The  coat  he  contrived  to  take 
otf  in  the  water,  and  then  struck  out  with  confidence  ;  but,  alas  ! 
the  coat  had  got  entangled  with  one  of  the  spurs,  and,  as  he 
swam,  it  clung  to  him,  getting  heavier  and  heavier  as  it  became 
saturated  with  water,  ever  dragging  him  beneath  the  stream. 
He,  however,  reached  the  shore,  where  his  anxious  friend  still 
stood  watching  the  event;  and,  as  the  latter  bent  over  him,  he 
was  just  able  to  make  a  gesture  with  his  hand,  which  seemed 
to  say,  "  You  see,  it  was  to  be  !"  and  then  expired. 

The  boatman  was  also  drowned  ;  but,  by  the  aid  of  the  horse, 
the  servant  escaped. 

As  I  do  not  wish  to  startle  my  readers,  nor  draw  too  sud- 
denly on  their  faith,  I  have  commenced  with  this  class  of  phe- 
nomena, which  it  must  be  admitted  are  sufficiently  strange,  and, 
if  true,  must  also  be  admitted  to  be  well  worthy  of  attention. 
No  doubt. these  cases,  and  still  more  those  to  which  I  shall  next 
proceed,  give  a  painful  shock  to  the  received  notions  of  polished 


WARNINGS. 


89 


and  educated  society  in  general — especially  in  this  country, 
where  the  analytical  or  scientifical  psychology  of  the  eighteenth 
century  has  almost  superseded  the  study  of  synthetic  or  philo- 
sophical psychology.  It  has  become  a  custom  to  look  at  all  the 
phenomena  regarding  man  in  a  purely  physiological  point  of 
view ;  for  although  it  is  admitted  that  he  has  a  mind,  and  al- 
though there  is  such  a  science  as  metaphysics,  the  existence  of 
what  we  call  mind  is  never  considered  but  as  connected  with 
the  body.  We  know  that  body  can  exist  without  mind ;  for, 
not  to  speak  of  certain  living  conditions,  the  body  subsists  with- 
out mind  when  the  spirit  has  fled ;  albeit,  without  the  living 
principle  it  can  subsist  but  for  a  short  period,  except  under  par- 
ticular circumstances  ;  but  we  seem  to  have  forgotten  that  mind, 
though  dependent  upon  body  as  long  as  the  connection  between 
them  continues,  can  yet  subsist  without  it.  There  have  indeed 
been  philosophers,  purely  materialistic,  who  have  denied  this, 
but  they  are  not  many ;  and  not  only  the  whole  Christian  world, 
but  all  who  believe  in  a  future  state,  must  perforce  admit  it ; 
for  even  those  who  hold  that  most  unsatisfactory  doctrine  that 
there  will  be  neither  memory  nor  consciousness  till  a  second 
incorporation  takes  place,  will  not  deny  that  the  mind,  however 
in  a  state  of  abeyance  and  unable  to  manifest  itself,  must  still 
subsist  as  an  inherent  property  of  man's  immortal  part.  Even 
if,  as  some  philosophers  believe,  the  spirit,  when  freed  from  the 
body  by  death,  returns  to  the  Deity  and  is  reabsorbed  in  the 
being  of  God,  not  to  become  again  a  separate  entity  until  re- 
incorporated, still  what  we  call  mind  can  not  be  disunited  from 
it.  And  when  once  we  have  begun  to  conceive  of  mind,  and 
consequently  of  perception,  as  separated  from  and  independent 
of  bodily  organs,  it  will  not  be  very  difficult  to  apprehend  that 
those  bodily  organs  must  circumscribe  and  limit  the  view  of  the 
spiritual  in-dweller,  which  must  otherwise  be  necessarily  per- 
ceptive of  spirit  like  itself,  though  perhaps  unperceptive  of 
material  objects  and  obstructions. 

"  It  is  perfectly  evident  to  me,"  said  Socrates,  in  his  last  mo- 
ments, "that,  to  see  clearly, we  must  detach  ourselves  from  the 
body,  and  perceive  by  the  soul  alone.    Not  while  we  live,  but 


90 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


when  we  die,  will  that  wisdom  which  we  desire  and  love  be  first 
revealed  to  us ;  it  must  be  then,  or  never,  that  we  shall  attain 
to  true  understanding  and  knowledge,  since  by  means  of  the 
body  we  never  can.  But  if,  during  life,  we  would  make  the 
nearest  approaches  possible  to  its  possession,  it  must  be  by 
divorcing  ourselves  as  much  as  in  us  lies  from  the  flesh  and  its 
nature."  In  their  spiritual  views  and  apprehension  of  the  na- 
ture of  man,  how  these  old  heathens  shame  us  ! 

The  Scriptures  teach  us  that  God  chose  to  reveal  himself  to 
his  jieople  chiefly  in  dreams,  and  we  are  entitled  to  conclude 
that  the  reason  of  this  was,  that  the  spirit  was  then  more  free 
to  the  reception  of  spiritual  influences  and  impressions ;  and 
the  class  of  dreams  to  which  I  next  proceed  seem  to  be  best 
explained  by  this  hypothesis.  It  is  also  to  be  remarked  that  the 
awe  or  fear  which  pervades  a  mortal  at  the  mere  conception 
of  being  brought  into  relation  with  a  spirit,  has  no  place  in 
sleep,  whether  natural  or  magnetic.  There  is  no  fear  then, 
no  surprise  ;  we  seem  to  meet  on  an  equality  —  is  it  not  that  we 
meet  spirit  to  spirit  1  Is  it  not  that  our  spirit  being  then  re- 
leased from  the  trammels  —  the  dark  chamber  of  the  flesh — it 
does  enjoy  a  temporary  equality  1  Is  not  that  true,  that  some 
German  psychologist  has  said  — "  The  magnetic  man  is  a 
spirit  /" 

There  are  numerous  instances  to  be  met  with  of  persons  re- 
ceiving information  in  their  sleep,  which  either  is,  or  seems  to 
be,  communicated  by  their  departed  friends.  The  approach  of 
danger,  the  period  of  the  sleeper's  death,  or  of  that  of  some  per- 
sons beloved,  has  been  frequently  made  known  in  this  form  of 
dream. 

Dr.  Binns  quotes,  from  Cardanus,  the  case  of  Johannes  Maria 
Maurosenus,  a  Venetian  senator,  who,  while  governor  of  Dal- 
matia,  saw  in  a  dream  one  of  his  brothers,  to  whom  he  was 
much  attached  :  the  brother  embraced  him  and  bade  him  fare- 
well, because  he  was  going  into  the  other  world.  Maurosenus 
having  followed  him  a  long  way  weeping,  awoke  in  tears,  and 
expressed  much  anxiety  respecting  this  brother.  Shortly  after- 
ward he  received  tidings  from  Venice  that  this  Domatus,  of 


WARNINGS. 


whom  he  had  ireamed,  had  died  on  the  night  and  at  the  hour 
of  the  dream,  (f  a  pestilential  fever,  which  had  carried  him  off 
in  three  days. 

On  the  night  of  the  21st  of  June,  in  the  year  1813,  a  lady, 
residing  in  the  north  of  England,  dreamed  that  her  brother,  who 
was  then  with  his  regiment  in  Spain,  appeared  to  her,  saying, 
"  Mary,  I  die  this  day  at  Vittoria !" 

Vittoria  was  a  town  which,  previous  to  the  famous  battle, 
was  not  generally  known  even  by  name  in  this  country,  and  this 
dreamer,  among  others,  had  never  heard  of  it ;  but,  on  rising, 
she  eagerly  resorted  to  a  gazetteer  for  the  purpose  of  ascer- 
taining if  such  a  place  existed.  On  finding  that  it  was  so,  she 
immediately  ordered  her  horses,  and  drove  to  the  house  of  a 
sister,  some  eight  or  nine  miles  off,  and  her  first  words  on  enter- 
ing the  room  were,  "Have  you  heard  anything  of  John?"  — 
"  No,"  replied  the  second  sister,  "  but  I  know  he  is  dead  !  He 
appeared  to  me  last  night,  in  a  dream,  and  told  me  that  he  was 
killed  at  Vittoria.  I  have  been  looking  into  the  gazetteer  and 
the  atlas,  and  I  find  there  is  such  a  place,  and  I  am  sure  that  he 
is  dead  !"  And  so  it  proved  :  the  young  n  an  died  that  day  at 
Vittoria,  and,  I  believe,  on  the  field  of  battle.  If  so,  it  is  wor- 
thy of  observation  that  the  communication  was  not  made  till  the 
sisters  slept. 

A  similar  case  to  this  is  that  of  Miss  D  ,  of  G  ,  who 

one  night  dreamed  that  she  was  walking  about  the  washing- 
greens,  when  a  figure  approached,  which  she  recognised  as  that 
of  a  beloved  brother  who  was  at  that  time  with  the  British  army 
in  America.  It  gradually  faded  away  into  a  kind  of"  anatomy, 
holding  up  its  hands,  through  which  the  light  could  be  perceived, 
and  asking  for  clothes  to  dress  a  body  for  the  grave.  The  dream 
recurred  more  than  once  in  the  same  night,  and,  apprehending 
some  misfortune,  Miss  D  noted  down  the  date  of  the  occur- 
rence.   In  due  course  of  post,  the  news  arrived  that  this  brother 

had  been  killed  at  the  battle  of  Bunker's  hill.    Miss  D  ,  who 

died  only  within  the  last  few  years,  though  unwilling  to  speak 
of  the  circumstance,  never  refused  to  testify  to  it  as  a  fact. 

Here,  supposing  this  to  be  a  real  apparition,  we  see  an  in- 


92 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


stance  of  that  desire  for  decent  obsequies  so  constantly  attrib- 
uted by  the  ancients  to  the  souls  of  the  dead. 

When  the  German  poet  Collin  died  at  Vienna,  a  person 
named  Hartmann,  who  was  his  friend,  found  himself  very  much 
distressed  by  the  loss  of  a  hundred  and  twenty  florins,  which  he 
had  paid  for  the  poet,  under  a  promise  of  reimbursement.  As 
this  sum  formed  a  large  portion  of  his  whole  possessions,  the 
circumstance  was  occasioning  him  considerable  anxiety,  when 
he  dreamed  one  night  that  his  deceased  friend  appeared  to  him, 
and  bade  him  immediately  set  two  florins  on  No.  11,  on  the 
first  calling  of  the  little  lottery,  or  loto,  then  about  to  be  drawn. 
He  was  bade  to  confine  his  venture  to  two  florins,  neither  less 
nor  more ;  and  to  communicate  this  information  to  nobody. 
Hartmann  availed  himself  of  the  hint,  and  obtained  a  prize  of 
a  hundred  and  thirty  florins. 

Since  we  look  upon  lotteries,  in  this  country,  as  an  immoral 
species  of  gambling,  it  may  be  raised  as  an  objection  to  this 
dream,  that  such  intelligence  was  an  unworthy  mission  for  a 
spirit,  supposing  the  communication  to  have  been  actually  made 
by  Collin.  But,  in  the  first  place,  we  have  only  to  do  with  facts, 
and  not  with  their  propriety  or  impropriety,  according  to  our 
notions  ;  and,  by-and-by,  I  shall  endeavor  to  show  that  such  dis- 
crepancies possibly  arise  from  the  very  erroneous  notions  com- 
monly entertained  of  the  state  of  those  who  have  disappeared 
from  the  terrestrial  life. 

Simonides  the  poet,  arriving  at  the  seashore  with  the  inten- 
tion of  embarking  on  board  a  vessel  on  the  ensuing  day,  found 
an  unburied  body,  which  he  immediately  desired  should  be  de- 
cently interred.  On  the  same  night,  this  deceased  person  ap- 
peared to  him,  and  bade  him  by  no  means  go  to  sea,  as  he  had 
proposed.  Simonides  obeyed  the  injunction,  and  beheld  the 
vessel  founder,  as  he  stood  on  the  shore.  He  raised  a  monu- 
ment on  the  spot  to  the  memory  of  his  preserver,  which  is  said 
still  to  exist,  on  which  are  engraven  some  lines,  to  the  effect 
that  it  was  dedicated  by  Simonides,  the  poet  of  Cheos,  in  grati- 
tude to  the  dead  who  had  preserved  him  from  death. 

A  much-esteemed  secretary  died  a  few  years  since,  in  the 


WARNINGS. 


93 


house  of  Mr.  R  von  N  .    About  eight  weeks  afterward, 

Mr.  R          himself  being  ill,  his  daughter  dreamed  that  the 

house-bell  rang,  and  that,  on  looking  out,  she  perceived  the  sec- 
retary at  the  door.  Having  admitted  him,  and  inquired  what 
he  was  come  for,  he  answered,  "  To  fetch  somebody."  Upon 
which,  alarmed  for  her  father,  she  exclaimed,  "  I  hope  not  my 
father  !"  He  shook  his  head  solemnly,  in  a  manner  that  implied 
it  was  not  the  old  man  he  had  come  for,  and  turned  away  tow- 
ard a  guest-chamber,  at  that  time  vacant,  and  there  disappeared 
at  the  door.  The  father  recovered,  and  the  lady  left  home  for 
a  few  days,  on  a  visit.  On  her  return,  she  found  her  brother 
had  arrived  in  the  interval  to  pay  a  visit  to  his  parents,  and  was 
lying  sick  in  that  room,  where  he  died. 

I  will  here  mention  a  curious  circumstance  regarding  Mr. 

H  ,  the  gentleman  alluded  to  in  a  former  page,  who,  being 

at  the  seaside,  saw,  in  a  dream,  the  danger  that  awaited  his  son 
when  he  went  to  bathe.  This  gentleman  has  frequently,  on 
waking,  felt  a  consciousness  that  he  had  been  conversing  with 
certain  persons  of  his  acquaintance  —  and,  indeed,  with  some 
of  whom  he  knew  little  —  and  has  afterward,  not  without  a  feel- 
ing of  awe,  learned  that  these  persons  had  died  during  the  hours 
of  his  sleep. 

Do  not  such  circumstances  entitle  us  to  entertain  the  idea 
that  I  have  suggested  above,  namely,  that  in  sleep  the  spirit  is 
free  to  see,  and  to'know,  and  to  communicate  with  spirit,  al- 
though the  memory  of  this  knowledge  is  rarely  carried  into  the 
waking  state  ? 

The  story  of  the  two  Arcadians,  who  travelled  together  to 
Megara,. though  reprinted  in  other  works,  I  can  not  omit  here. 
One  of  these  established  himself,  on  the  night  of  their  arrival, 
at  the  house  of  a  friend,  while  the  other  sousrht  shelter  in  a 
public  lodging-house  for  strangers.  During  the  night,  the  lat- 
ter appeared  to  the  former,  in  a  dream,  and  besought  him  to 
zome  to  his  assistance,  as  his  villanous  host  was  about  to  take 
his  life,  and  only  the  most  speedy  aid  could  save  him.  The 
dreamer  started  from  his  sleep,  and  his  first  movement  was  to 
obey  the  summons,  but,  reflecting  that  it  was  only  a  dream,  he 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE 


presently  lay  down,  and  composed  himself  again  to  rest.  Bu 
now  his  friend  appeared  before  him  a  second  time,  disfigured 
by  blood  and  wounds,  conjuring  him,  since  he  had  not  listened 
to  his  first  entreaties,  that  he  would,  at  least,  avenge  his  death. 
His  host,  he  said,  had  murdered  him,  and  was,  at  that  moment, 
depositing  his  body  in  a  dung-cart,  for  the  purpose  of  convey- 
ing it  out  of  the  town.  The  dreamer  was  thoroughly  alarmed, 
arose,  arul  hastened  to  the  gates  of  the  city,  where  he  found, 
waiting  to  pass  out,  exactly  such  a  vehicle  as  his  friend  had 
described.  A  search  being  instituted,  the  body  was  found  un- 
derneath the  manure ;  and  the  host  was  consequently  seized, 
and  delivered  over  to  the  chastisement  of  the  law. 

"  Who  shall  venture  to  assert/'  says  Dr.  Ennemoser,  "  that 
this  communing  with  the  dead  in  sleep  is  merely  a  subjective 
phenomenon,  and  that  the  presence  of  these  apparitions  is  a 
pure  illusion  ?" 

A  circumstance  fully  as  remarkable  as  any  recorded,  occurred 
at  Odessa,  in  the  year  1842.  An  old  blind  man,  named  Michel, 
had  for  many  years  been  accustomed  to  get  his  living  by  seat- 
ing himself  every  morning  on  a  beam  in  one  of  the  timber-yards, 
with  a  wooden  bowl  at  his  feet,  into  which  the  passengers  cast 
their  alms.  This  long-continued  practice  had  made  him  well 
known  to  the  inhabitants,  and,  as  he  was  believed  to  have  been 
formerly  a  soldier,  his  blindness  was  attributed  to  the  numerous 
wounds  he  had  received  in  battle.  For  his  own  part,  he  spoke 
little,  and  never  contradicted  this  opinion. 

One  night,  Michel,  by  some  accident,  fell  in  with  a  little  girl 
of  ten  years  old,  named  Powleska,  who  was  friendless,  and  on 
the  verge  of  perishing  with  cold  and  hunger.  The  old  man 
took  her  home,  and  adopted  her ;  and,  from  that  time,  instead 
of  sitting  in  the  timber-yards,  he  went  about  the  streets  in  her 
company,  asking  alms  at  the  doors  of  the  houses.  The  child 
called  him  father,  and  they  were  extremely  happy  together 
But  when  they  had  pursued  this  mode  of  life  for  about  five 
years,  a  misfortune  befell  them.  A  theft  having  been  commit- 
ted in  a  house  which  they  had  visited  in  the  morning,  Powleska 
was  suspected  and  arrested,  and  the  blind  man  was  left  once 


WARNINGS. 


96 


more  alone.  But,  instead  of  resuming  his  former  habits,  he 
now  disappeared  altogether ;  and  this  circumstance  causing  the 
suspicion  to  extend  to  him,  the  girl  was  brought  before  the 
magistrate  to  be  interrogated  with  regard  to  his  probable  place 
of  concealment. 

"  Do  you  know  where  Michel  is  ?"  said  the  magistrate. 

"  He  is  dead  !"  replied  she,  shedding  a  torrent  of  tears. 

As  the  girl  had  been  shut  up  for  three  days,  without  any 
means  of  obtaining  information  from  without,  this  answer,  to- 
gether with  her  unfeigned  distress,  naturally  excited  consider- 
able surprise. 

"  Who  told  you  he  was  dead  V*  they  inquired. 

"Nobody!" 

"  Then  how  can  you  know  it  V 
"  I  saw  him  killed  !" 

"  But  you  have  not  been  out  of  the  prison  V* 
U  But  I  saw  it,  nevertheless  !" 

"  But  how  was  that  possible  1    Explain  what  you  mean  !" 
"  I  can  not.    All  I  can  say  is,  that  I  saw  him  killed." 
"  When  was  he  killed,  and  how  V* 
"  It  was  the  night  I  was  arrested." 

"  That  can  not  be  :  he  was  alive  when  you  wrere  seized !" 
"  Yes,  he  was ;  he  was  killed  an  hour  after  that.  They 
stabbed  him  with  a  knife." 
"  Where  were  you  then  V* 
"  I  can't  tell;  but  I  saw  it." 

The  confidence  with  which  the  girl  asserted  what  seemed  to 
her  hearers  impossible  and  absurd,  disposed  them  to  imagine 
that  she  was  either  really  insane,  or  pretending  to  be  so.  So, 
leaving  Michel  aside,  they  proceeded  to  interrogate  her  about 
the  robbery,  asking  her  if  she  was  guilty. 

"  Oh,  no  !"  she  answered. 

"  Then  how  came  the  property  to  be  found  about  you  V* 
"  I  don't  know  :  I  saw  nothing  but  the  murder." 
U.  But  there  are  no  grounds  for  supposing  Michel  is  dead  : 
his  body  has  not  been  found." 
"  It  is  in  the  aqueduct." 


36 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


"  And  do  you  know  who  slew  him  V* 

"Yes  —  it  is  a  woman.  Michel  was  walking  very  slowly, 
after  I  was  taken  from  him.  A  woman  came  behind  him  with 
a  large  kitchen-knife  ;  but  he  heard  her,  and  turned  round : 
and  then  the  woman  flung  a  piece  of  gray  stuff  over  his  head, 
and  struck  him  repeatedly  with  the  knife ;  the  gray  stuff  was 
much  stained  with  the  blood.  Michel  fell  at  the  eighth  blow, 
and  the  woman  dragged  the  body  to  the  aqueduct  and  let  it  fall 
in  without  ever  lifting  the  stuff  which  stuck  to  his  face." 

As  it  was  easy  to  verify  these  latter  assertions,  they  despatched 
people  to  the  spot;  and  there  the  body  was  found,  with  the 
piece  of  stuff  over  his  head,  exactly  as  she  described.  But 
when  they  asked  her  how  she  knew  all  this,  she  could  only 
answer,  "  I  don't  know." 

"  But  you  know  who  killed  him  V 

"  Not  exactly  :  it  is  the  same  woman  that  put  out  his  eyes  ; 
but,  perhaps,  he  will  tell  me  her  name  to-night ;  and  if  he  does, 
I  will  tell  it  to  you." 

"  Whom  do  you  mean  by  he  V* 

"Why,  Michel,  to  be  sure  !" 

During  the  whole  of  the  following  night,  without  allowing 
her  to  suspect  their  intention,  they  watched  her ;  and  it  was 
observed  that  she  never  lay  down,  but  sat  upon  the  bed  in  a 
6ort  of  lethargic  slumber.  Her  body  was  quite  motionless,  ex- 
cept at  intervals,  when  this  repose  was  interrupted  by  violent 
nervous  shocks,  which  pervaded  her  whole  frame.  On  the 
ensuing  day,  the  moment  she  was  brought  before  the  judge, 
she  declared  that  she  was  now  able  to  tell  them  the  name  of 
the  assassin. 

"  But  stay,"  said  the  magistrate  :  M  did  Michel  never  tell  you, 
when  he  was  alive,  how  he  lost  his  sight?" 

"  No  —  but  the  morning  before  1  was  arrested,  he  promised 
me  to  do  so  ;  and  that  was  the  cause  of  his  death." 

"  How  could  that  be  ?" 

"  Last  night,  Michel  came  to  me,  and  he  pointed  to  the  man 
hidden  behind  the  scaffolding  on  which  he  and  I  had  been 
sitting.     He  showed  me  the  man  listening  to  us,  when  he 


WARNINGS. 


97 


said,  'I'll  tell  you  all  about  that  to-night     and  then  the 

man  " 

u  Do  you  know  the  name  of  this  man  V 

"  It  is  Luck.  He  went  afterward  to  a  broad  street  that  leads 
down  to  the  harbor,  and  he  entered  the  third  house  on  the 
right  " 

"  What  is  the  name  of  the  street  ?" 

u  I  do  n't  know  :  but  the  house  is  one  story  lower  than  the 
adjoining  ones.  Luck  told  Catherine  what  he  had  heard,  and 
.she  proposed  to  him  to  assassinate  Michel ;  but  he  refused,  say- 
ing, '  It  was  bad  enough  to  have  burnt  out  his  eyes  fifteen  years 
before,  while  he  was  asleep  at  your  door,  and  to  have  kidnapped 
him  into  the  country.'  Then  I  went  in  to  ask  charity,  and 
Catherine  put  a  piece  of  plate  into  my  pocket,  that  I  might  be 
arrested ;  then  she  hid  herself  behind  the  aqueduct  to  wait  for 
Michel,  and  she  killed  him." 

"  But,  since  you  say  all  this,  why  did  you  keep  the  plate— 
why  didn't  you  give  information?"* 

u  But  I  didn't  see  it  then.    Michel  showed  it  me  last  night." 

"  But  what  should  induce  Catherine  to  do  this  ?" 

"  Michel  was  her  husband,  and  she  had  forsaken  him  to  come 
to  Odessa  and  marry  again.  One  night,  fifteen  years  ago,  she 
saw  Michel,  who  had  come  to  seek  her.  She  slipped  hastily 
into  her  house,  and  Michel,  who  thought  she  had  not  seen  him, 
lay  down  at  her  door  to  watch ;  but  he  fell  asleep,  and  then 
Luck  burnt  out  his  eyes,  and  carried  him  to  a  distance." 

**  And  is  it  Michel  who  has  told  you  this  %" 

"  Yes  :  he  came,  very  pale,  and  covered  with  blood  ;  and  he 
took  me  by  the  hand  and  showed  me  all  this  with  his  fingers." 

Upon  this,  Luck  and  Catherine  were  arrested ;  and  it  was 
ascertained  that  she  had  actually  been  married  to  Michel  in  the 
year  1819,  at  Kherson.  They  at  first  denied  the  accusation, 
but  Powleska  insisted,  and  they  subsequently  confessed  the 
crime.  When  they  communicated  the  circumstances  of  the 
confession  to  Powleska,  she  said,  "  I  was  told  it  last  night." 

This  affair  naturally  excited  great  interest,  and  people  all 
round  the  neighborhood  hastened  into  the  city  to  learn  the  sen- 
tence. 5 


Oft 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

DOUBLE-DREAMING  AND  TRANCE. 

Among  the  phenomena  of  the  dream-life  which  we  hare  to 
consider,  that  of  double- dreaming  forms  a  very  curious  depart- 
ment. A  somewhat  natural  introduction  to  this  subject  may- 
be found  in  the  cases  above  recorded,  of  Professor  Herder  and 

Mr.  S  ,  of  Edinburgh,  who  appear,  in  their  sleep,  to  have 

received  so  lively  an  impression  of  those  earnest  wishes  of  their 
dying  friends  to  see  them,  that  they  found  themselves  irresisti- 
bly impelled  to  obey  the  spiritual  summons.  These  two  cases 
occurred  to  men  engaged  in  active  daily  life,  and  in  normal 
physical  conditions,  on  which  account  I  particularly  refer  to 
them  here,  although  many  similar  ones  might  be  adduced. 

With  respect  to  this  subject  of  double-dreaming,  Dr.  Enne- 
moser  thinks  that  it  is  not  so  difficult  to  explain  as  might  ap- 
pear on  a  first  view,  since  he  considers  that  there  exists  an 
indisputable  sympathy  between  certain  organisms,  especially 
where  connected  by  relationship  or  by  affection,  which  may 
be  sufficient  to  account  for  the  supervention  of  simultaneous 
thoughts,  dreams,  or  presentiments ;  and  I  have  met  with  some 
cases  where  the  magnetiser  and  his  patient  have  been  the  sub- 
jects of  this  phenomenon.  With  respect  to  the  power  asserted 
to  have  been  frequently  exercised  by  causing  or  suggesting 
dreams  by  an  operator  at  a  distance  from  the  sleeper,  Dr.  E. 
considers  the  two  parties  to  stand  in  a  positive  and  negative 
relation  to  each  other ;  the  antagonistic  power  of  the  sleeper 
being  =  0,  he  becomes  a  perfectly  passive  recipient  of  the 
influence  exerted  by  his  positive  half,  if  I  may  use  the  expres- 
sion ;  for,  where  such  a  polarity  is  established,  the  two  beings 
seem  to  be  almost  blended  into  one ;  while  Dr.  Passavent  ob* 


DOUBLE-DREAMING  AND  TRANCE. 


99 


serves,  that  we  can  not  pronounce  what  may  be  the  limits  of 
the  nervous  force,  which  certainly  is  not  bounded  by  the  ter- 
mination of  its  material  conductors. 

I  have  yet,  myself,  met  with  no  instance  of  dream  compelling 
by  a  person  at  a  distance  ;  but  Dr.  Ennemoser  says  that  Agrippa 
von  Nettesheim  asserts  that  this  can  assuredly  be  done,  and  also 
that  the  abbot  Trithemius  and  others  possessed  the  power.  In 
modern  times,  Wesermaun,  in  Dusseldorf,  pretended  to  the 
same  faculty,  and  affirms  that  he  had  frequently  exercised  it. 

All  such  phenomena,  Dr.  Passavent  attributes  to  the  interac- 
tion of  imponderables  —  or  of  one  universal  imponderable  under 
different  manifestations  —  which  acts  not  only  within  the  organ- 
ism, but  beyond  it,  independently  of  all  material  obstacles  ;  just 
as  a  sympathy  appears  between  one  organ  and  another,  unob- 
structed by  the  intervening  ones ;  and  he  instances  the  sympa- 
thy which  exists  between  the  mother  and  the  fcetus,  as  an 
example  of  this  sort  of  double  life,  and  standing  as  midway 
between  the  sympathy  between  two  organs  in  the  same  body 
and  that  between  two  separate  bodies,  each  having  its  own  life, 
and  its  life  also  in  and  for  another,  as  parts  of  one  whole.  The 
sympathy  between  a  bird  and  the  eggs  it  sits  upon,  is  of  the 
same  kind ;  many  instances  having  been  observed,  wherein 
eggs,  taken  from  one  bird  and  placed  under  another,  have  pro- 
duced a  brood  feathered  like  the  foster  instead  of  the  real 
parent. 

Thus,  this  vital  force  may  extend  dynamically  the  circle  of 
its  influence,  till,  under  favorable  circumstances,  it  may  act  on 
other  organisms,  making  their  organs  its  own. 

I  need  scarcely  remind  my  readers  of  the  extraordinary  sym- 
pathies manifested  by  the  Siamese  twins,  Chang  and  Eng.  I 
never  saw  them  myself ;  and,  for  the  benefit  of  others  in  the 
same  sitnation,  I  quote  the  following  particulars  from  Dr.  Pas- 
savent :  "  They  were  united  by  a  membrane  which  extended 
from  the  breast-bone  to  the  navel ;  but,  in  other  respects,  were 
not  different  from  their  countrymen  in  general.  They  were 
exceedingly  alike,  only  that  Eng  was  rather  the  more  robust 
of  the  two.     Their  pulsations  were  not  always  coincident. 


100 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


They  were  active  and  agile,  and  fond  of  bodily  exercises ;  their 
intellects  were  well  developed,  and  their  tones  of  voice  and 
accent  were  precisely  the  same.  As  they  never  conversed  to- 
gether, they  had  nearly  forgotten  their  native  tongue.  If  one 
was  addressed,  they  both  answered.  They  played  some  games 
of  skill,  but  never  with  each  other ;  as  that,  they  said,  would 
have  been  like  the  right  hand  playing  with  the  left.  They  read 
the  same  book  at  the  same  time,  and  sang  together  in  unison. 
In  America  they  had  a  fever,  which  ran  precisely  a  similar 
course  with  each.  Their  hunger,  thirst,  sleeping,  and  waking, 
were  alway  coincident,  and  their  tastes  and  inclinations  were 
identical.  Their  movements  were  so  simultaneous,  that  it  was 
impossible  to  distinguish  with  which  the  impulse  had  originated  ; 
they  appeared  to  have  but  one  will.  The  idea  of  being  sepa- 
rated by  an  operation  was  abhorrent  to  them ;  and  they  con- 
sider themselves  much  happier  in  their  duality  than  are  the 
individuals  who  look  upon  them  with  pity." 

This  admirable  sympathy,  although  necessarily  in  an  inferior 
degree,  is  generally  manifested,  more  or  less,  between  all  per- 
sons twin-born.  Dr.  Passavent  and  other  authorities  mention 
several  instances  of  this  kind,  in  which,  although  at  some  dis- 
tance from  each  other,  the  same  malady  appeared  simulta- 
neously in  both,  and  ran  precisely  a  similar  course.  A  very 
affecting  instance  of  this  sort  of  sympathy  was  exhibited,  not 
very  long  ago,  by  a  young  lady,  twin-born,  who  was  suddenly 
seized  with  an  unaccountable  horror,  followed  by'  a  strange 
convulsion,  which  the  doctor,  who  was  hastily  called  in,  said 
exactly  resembled  the  struggles  and  sufferings  of  a  person 
drowning.  In  process  of  time,  the  news  arrived  that  her  twin- 
brother,  then  abroad,  had  been  drowned  precisely  at  that  period. 

It  is  probably  a  link  of  the  same  kind  that  is  established  between 
the  magnetiser  and  his  patient,  of  which,  besides  those  recorded 
in  various  works  on  the  subject,  some  curious  instances  have 
come  to  my  knowledge,  such  as  uncontrollable  impulses  to  go 
to  sleep,  or  to  perform  certain  actions,  in  subservience  to  the  will 

of  the  distant  operator.    Mr.  W  W  ,  a  gentleman  well 

known  in  the  north  of  England,  related  to  me  that  he  had  been 


DOUBLE-DREAMING  AND  TRANCE. 


101 


cured,  by  magnetism,  of  a  very  distressing  malady.  During 
part  of  the  process  of  cure,  after  the  rapport  had  been  well 
established,  the  operations  were  carried  on  while  he  was  at 
Malvern,  and  his  magnetiser  at  Cheltenham,  under  which  cir- 
cumstances the  existence  of  this  extraordinary  dependence  was 
frequently  exhibited  in  a  manner  that  left  no  possibility  of 

doubt.    On  one  occasion,  T  remember  that  Mr.  W  W  • 

being  in  the  magnetic  sleep,  he  suddenly  started  from  his  seat, 
clasping  his  hands  as  if  startled,  and  presently  afterward  burst 
into  a  violent  fit  of  laughter.  As,  on  waking,  he  could  give  no 
account  of  these  impulses,  his  family  wrote  to  the  magnetiser  to 
inquire  if  he  had  sought  to  excite  any  particular  manifestations 
in  his  patient,  as  the  sleep  had  been  somewhat  disturbed.  The 
answer  was,  that  no  such  intention  had  been  entertained,  but 
that  the  disturbance  might  possibly  have  arisen  from  one  to 
which  he  had  himself  been  subjected.  "  While  my  mind  was 
concentrated  on  you,"  said  he,  "  I  was  suddenly  so  much 
startled  by  a  violent  knock  at  the  door,  that  I  actually  jumped 
off  my  seat,  clasping  my  hands  with  affright.  I  had  a  hearty 
laugh  at  my  own  folly,  but  am  sorry  if  you  were  made  uncom- 
fortable by  it." 

I  have  met  with  some  accounts  of  a  sympathy  of  this  kind 
existing  between  young  children  and  their  parents,  so  that  the 
former  have  exhibited  great  distress  and  terror  at  the  moment 
that  death  or  danger  have  supervened  to  the  latter ;  but  it 
would  require  a  great  number  of  instances  to  establish  this  par- 
ticular fact,  and  separate  it  from  cases  of  accidental  coinci- 
dence.   Dr.  Passavent,  however,  admits  the  phenomena. 

I  shall  return  to  these  mysterious  influences  by-and-by ;  but 
to  revert,  in  the  meanwhile,  to  the  subject  of  double  dreams,  I 
will  relate  one  that  occurred  to  two  ladies,  a  mother  and  daugh- 
ter, the  latter  of  whom  related  it  to  me.    They  were  sleeping 

in  the  same  bed  at  Cheltenham,  when  the  mother,  Mrs.  C  , 

dreamed  that  her  brother-in-law,  then  in  Ireland,  had  sent  for 
her  ;  that  she  entered  his  room,  and  saw  him  in  bed,  apparently 
dying.  He  requested  her  t3  kiss  him,  but,  owing  to  his  livid 
appearance,  she  shrank  from  doing  so,  and  awoke  with  the  hor- 


102 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


ror  of  the  scene  upon  her.  The  daughter  awoke  at  the  same 
moment,  saying,  u  Oh,  I  have  had  such  a  frightful  dream !" 
"Oh,  so  have  I !"  returned  the  mother;  "  I  have  been  dream- 
ing of  my  brother-in-law  !" — "  My  dream  was  about  him,  too," 
added  Miss  C  .  "  I  thought  I  was  sitting  in  the  drawing- 
room,  and  that  he  came  in  wearing  a  shroud,  trimmed  with 
black  ribands,  and,  approaching  me,  he  said  :  'My  dear  niece, 
your  mother  has  refused  to  kiss  me,  but  I  am  sure  you  will 
not  be  so  unkind  !'  " 

As  these  ladies  were  not  in  habits  of  regular  correspondence 
with  their  relative,  they  knew  that  the  earliest  intelligence 
likely  to  reach  them,  if  he  were  actually  dead,  would  be  by 
means  of  the  Irish  papers ;  and  they  waited  anxiously  for  the 
following  Wednesday,  which  was  the  day  these  journals  were 
received  in  Cheltenham.    When  that  morning  arrived,  Miss 

C  hastened  at  an  early  hour  to  the  reading-room,  and  there 

she  learned  what  the  dreams  had  led  them  to  expect :  their  friend 
was  dead ;  and  they  afterward  ascertained  that  his  decease  had 
taken  place  on  that  night.  They  moreover  observed,  that  nei- 
ther one  nor  the  other  of  them  had  been  speaking  or  thinking 
of  this  gentleman  for  some  time  previous  to  the  occurrence  of 
the  dreams ;  nor  had  they  any  reason  whatever  for  uneasiness 
with  regard  to  him.  It  is  a  remarkable  peculiarity  in  this  case, 
that  the  dream  of  the  daughter  appears  to  be  a  continuation  of 
that  of  the  mother.  In  the  one,  he  is  seen  alive ;  in  the  other, 
the  shroud  and  black  ribands  seem  to  indicate  that  he  is  dead, 
and  he  complains  of  the  refusal  to  give  him  a  farewell  kiss. 

One  is  almost  inevitably  led  here  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
thoughts  and  wishes  of  the  dying  man  were  influencing  the 
sleepers,  or  that  the  released  spirit  was  hovering  near  them. 

Pomponius  Mela  relates,  that  a  certain  people  in -the  interior 
of  Africa  lay  themselves  down  to  sleep  on  the  graves  of  their 
forefathers,  and  believe  the  dreams  that  ensue  to  be  the  uner- 
ring counsel  of  the  dead. 

The  following  dream,  from  St.  Austin,  is  quoted  by  Dr. 
Binns  :  Praestantius  desired  from  a  certain  philosopher  the 
solution  of  a  doubt,  which  the  latter  refused  to  give  him ;  but, 


DOUBLE -DREAMING  AND  TRANCE. 


103 


on  tlie  following  night,  the  philosopher  appeared  at  his  bedside 
and  told  him  what  he  desired  to  know.  On  being  asked,  the 
next  day,  why  he  had  chosen  that  hour  for  his  visit,  he  answered  : 
1 1  came  not  to  you  truly,  but  in  my  dream  I  appeared  to  you 
to  do  so.'  In  this  case,  however,  only  one  of  the  parties  seems 
to  have  been  asleep,  for  Praestantius  says  that  he  was  awake ; 
and  it  is  perhaps  rather  an  example  of  another  kind  of  phe- 
nomena, similar  to  the  instance  recorded  of  himself  by  the  late 
Joseph  Wilkins,  a  dissenting  minister,  who  says  that,  being  one 
night  asleep,  he  dreamed  that  he  was  travelling  to  London,  and 
that,  as  it  would  not  be  much  out  of  his  way,  he  would  go  by 
Gloucestershire  and  call  upon  his  friends.  Accordingly  he 
arrived  at  his  father's  house,  but,  finding  the  front  door  closed, 
lie  went  round  to  the  back  and  there  entered.  The  family, 
however,  being  already  in  bed,  he  ascended  the  stairs  and  en- 
tered his  father's  bedchamber.  Him  he  found  asleep ;  but  to 
his  mother,  who  was  awake,  he  said,  as  he  walked  round  to  her 
side  of  the  bed,  *  Mother,  I  am  going  a  long  journey,  and  am 
come  to  bid  you  good-by  f  to  which  she  answered,  4  Oh,  dear 
son,  thee  art  dead  !'  Though  struck  with  the  distinctness  ot 
the  dream,  Mr.  Wilkins  attached  no  importance  to  it,  till,  to  his 
surprise,  a  letter  arrived  from  his  father,  addressed  to  himself,  if 
alive — or,  if  not,  to  his  surviving  friends — begging  earnestly  for 
immediate  intelligence,  since  they  were  under  great  apprehen- 
sions that  their  son  was  either  dead,  or  in  danger  of  death ;  for 
that,  on  such  a  night  (naming  that  on  which  the  above  dream 
had  occurred),  he,  the  father,  being  asleep,  and  Mrs.  Wilkins 
awake,  she  had  distinctly  heard  somebody  try  to  open  the  fore 
floor,  which  being  fast,  the  person  had  gone  round  to  the  back 
and  there  entered.  She  had  perfectly  recognised  the  footstep 
to  be  that  of  her  son,  who  had  ascended  the  stairs,  and  entering 
the  bedchamber,  had  said  to  her,  1  Mother,  I  am  going  a  long 
journey,  and  am  come  to  bid  you  good-by  whereupon  she  had 
answered,  '  Oh,  dear  son,  thee  art  dead  !*  Much  alarmed,  she 
had  awakened  her  husband  and  related  what  had  occurred,  as- 
suring him  that  it  was  not  a  dream,  for  that  she  had  not  been 
asleep  at  all.    Mr.  Wilkins  mentions  that  this  curious  circum- 


104 


THE  NIGHT- SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


stance  took  place  in  the  year  1754,  when  he  was  living  at 
Ottery;  and  that  he  had  frequently  discussed  the  subject  with 
his  mother,  on  whom  the  impression  made  was  even  stronger 
than  on  himself.  Neither  death  nor  anything  else  remarkable 
ensued." 

A  somewhat  similar  instance  to  this,  which  I  also  quote  from 
Dr.  Binns,  is  that  of  a  gentleman  who  dreamed  that  he  wa? 
pushing  violently  against  the  door  of  a  certain  room,  in  a  house 
with  which  he  was  well  acquainted ;  while  the  people  in  that 
room  were,  at  the  same  time,  actually  alarmed  by  a  violent 
pushing  against  the  door,  which  it  required  their  utmost  force 
effectually  to  resist.  As  soon  as  the  attempt  to  burst  open  the 
door  had  ceased,  the  house  was  searched,  but  nothing  discov- 
ered to  account  for  the  disturbance. 

These  examples  are  extremely  curious,  and  they  conduct  us 
by  a  natural  transition  to  another  department  of  this  mysterious 
subject. 

There  must  be  few  persons  who  have  not  heard,  among  their 
friends  and  acquaintance,  instances  of  what  is  called  a  wraith; 
that  is,  that  in  the  moment  of  death,  a  person  is  seen  in  a  place 
where  bodily  he  is  not.  I  believe  the  Scotch  use  this  term 
also  in  the  same  sense  as  the  Irish  word  fetch ;  which  is  a  per- 
son's double  seen  at  some  indefinite  period  previous  to  his 
death,  of  which  such  an  appearance  is  generally  supposed  to 
be  a  prognostic.  The  Germans  express  the  same  thing  by  the 
word  d'oppelg  anger. 

With  respect  to  the  appearance  of  wraiths,  at  the  moment 
of  death,  the  instances  to  be  met  with  are  so  numerous  and  well- 
authenticated,  that  I  generally  find  the  most  skeptical  people 
unable  to  deny  that  some  such  phenomenon  exists,  although 
they  evade,  without  I  think,  diminishing  the  difficulty,  by  pro- 
nouncing it  to  be  of  a  subjective,  and  not  of  an  objective,  na- 
ture ;  that  is,  that  the  image  of  the  dying  person  is,  by  some 
unknown  operation,  presented  to  the  imagination  of  the  seer, 
without  the  existence  of  any  real  outstanding  figure,  from  which 
it  is  reflected  ;  which  reduces  such  instances  so  nearly  to  the 
class  of  mere  sensuous  illusion,  that  it  seems  difficult  to  draw 


WRAITHS. 


105 


the  distinction.  The  distinction  these  theorists  wish  to  imply, 
however,  is  that  the  latter  are  purely  subjective  and  self-origina- 
ting, while  the  others  have  an  external  cause,  although  not  an 
external  visible  object  —  the  image  seen  being  protruded  by  the 
imagination  of  the  seer,  in  consequence  of  an  unconscious  intu- 
ition of  the  death  of  the  person  whose  wraith  is  perceived. 

Instances  of  this  kind  of  phenomenon  have  been  common  in 
all  ages  of  the  world,  insomuch  that  Lucretius,  who  did  not  be- 
lieve in  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  and  was  yet  unable  to  deny 
the  facts,  suggested  the  strange  theory  that 'the  superficial  sur- 
faces of  all  bodies  were  continually  flying  off,  like  the  coats  of 
an  onion,  which  accounted  for  the  appearance  of  wraiths,  ghosts, 
doubles,  &c. ;  and  a  more  modern  author,  Gaffarillus,  suggests 
that  corrupting  bodies  send  forth  vapors,  which  being  com- 
pressed by  the  cold  night  air,  appear  visible  to  the  eye  in  the 
fv jrms  of  men. 

It  will  not  be  out  of  place,  here,  to  mention  the  circumstance 
recorded  in  Professor  Gregory's  "  Abstract  of  Baron  von 
Reichenbach's  Researches  in  Magnetism,"  regarding  a  person 
called  Billing,  who  acted  in  the  capacity  of  amanuensis  to  the 
blind  poet  Pfeffel,  at  Colmar.  Having  treated  of  various  exper- 
iments, by  which  it  was  ascertained  that  certain  sensitive  per- 
sons were  not  only  able  to  detect  electric  influences  of  which 
others  were  unconscious,  but  could  also  perceive,  emanating 
from  the  wires  and  magnets,  flames  which  were  invisible  to  peo- 
ple in  general ;  "  the  baron,"  according  to  Dr.  Gregory,  "  pro- 
ceeded to  a  useful  application  of  the  results,  which  is,  he  says, 
mj  much  the  more  welcome,  as  it  utterly  eradicates  one  of  the 
chief  foundations  of  superstition,  that  worst  enemy  to  the  devel- 
opment of  human  enlightenment  and  liberty.  A  singular  occur- 
rence, which  took  place  at  Colmar,  in  the  garden  of  the  poet 
Pfeffel,  has  been  made  generally  known  by  various  writings. 
The  following  are  the  essential  facts.  The  poet,  being  blind, 
had  employed  a  young  clergyman,  of  the  evangelical  church,  as 
amanuensis.  Pfeffel,  when  he  walked  out,  was  supported  and 
led  by  this  young  man,  whose  name  was  Billing.  As  they 
walked  in  the  garden,  at  some  distance  from  the  town,  Pfeffel 

5* 


106  THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


observed,  that  as  often  as  they  passed  over  a  particular  spot, 
the  arm  of  Billing  trembled,  and  he  betrayed  uneasiness.  On 
being  questioned,  the  young  man  reluctantly  confessed,  that  as 
often  as  he  passed  over  that  spot,  certain  feelings  attacked  him, 
which  he  could  not  control,  and  which  he  knew  well,  as  he 
always  experienced  the  same,  in  passing  over  any  place  where 
human  bodies  lay  buried.  He  added,  that  at  night,  when  he 
came  near  such  places,  he  saw  supernatural  appearances.  Pfef- 
fel,  with  the  view  of  curing  the  youth  of  what  he  looked  on  as 
fancy,  went  that  night  with  him  to  the  garden.  As  they  ap- 
proached the  spot  in  the  dark,  Billing  perceived  a  feeble  light, 
and  when  still  nearer,  he  saw  a  luminous  ghostlike  figure  float- 
ing over  the  spot.  This  he  described  as  a  female  form,  with 
one  arm  laid  across  the  body,  the  other  hanging  down,  floating 
in  the  upright  posture,  but  tranquil,  the  feet  only  a  hand-breadth 
or  two  above  the  soil.  PfefTel  went  alone,  as  the  young  man 
declined  to  follow  him,  up  to  the  place  where  the  figure  was 
said  to  be,  and  struck  about  in  all  directions  with  his  stick,  be- 
sides running  actually  through  the  shadow  ;  but  the  figure  was 
not  more  affected  than  a  flame  would  have  been ;  the  luminous 
form,  according  to  Billing  always  returned  to  its  original  posi 
tion  after  these  experiments.  Many  things  were  tried  during 
several  months,  and  numerous  companies  of  people  were 
brought  to  the  spot,  but  the  matter  remained  the  same,  and  the 
ghost-seer  adhered  to  his  serious  assertion,  and  to  the  opinion 
founded  on  it,  that  some  individual  lay  buried  there.  At  last, 
PfefTel  had  the  place  dug  up.  At  a  considerable  depth  was 
found  a  firm  layer  of  white  lime,  of  the  length  and  breadth  of 
a  grave,  and  of  considerable  thickness,  and  when  this  had  been 
broken  into,  there  were  found  the  bones  of  a  human  being.  It 
was  evident  that  some  one  had  been  buried  in  the  place,  and 
covered  with  a  thick  layer  of  lime  (quicklime),  as  is  generally 
done  in  times  of  pestilence,  of  earthquakes,  and  other  similar 
events.  The  bones  were  removed,  the  pit  filled  up,  the  lime 
scattered  abroad,  and  the  surface  again  made  smooth.  When 
Billing  was  now  brought  back  to  the  place,  the  phenomena  did 
not  return,  and  the  nocturnal  spirit  had  for  ever  disappeared. 


CHEMICAL  EMANATIONS. 


107 


**  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out  to  the  reader  what  view 
die  author  takes  of  this  story,  which  excited  much  attention  in 
Germany,  because  it  came  from  the  most  truthful  man  alive, 
and  theologians  and  psychologists  gave  to  it  sundry  terrific 
meanings.    It  obviously  falls  into  the  province  of  chemical 
action,  and  thus  meets  with  a  simple  and  clear  explanation  from 
natural  and  physical  causes.    A  corpse  is  a  field  for  abundant 
chemical  changes,  decompositions,  fermentation,  putrefaction, 
gasification,  and  general  play  of  affinities.    A  stratum  of  quick- 
lime, in  a  narrow  pit,  unites  its  powerful  affinities  to  those  of 
the  organic  matters,  and  gives  rise  to  a  long-continued  working 
of  the  whole.    Rain-water  filters  through  and  contributes  to 
the  action :  the  lime  on  the  outside  of  the  mass  first  falls  to  a 
fine  powder,  and  afterward,  with  more  water,  forms  lumps 
which  are  very  slowly  penetrated  by  the  air.    Slaked  lime  pre- 
pared for  building,  but  not  used,  on  account  of  some  cause  con- 
nected with  a  warlike  state  of  society  some  centuries  since,  has 
been  found  in  subterraneous  holes  or  pits,  in  the  ruins  of  old 
castles ;  and  the  mass,  except  on  the  outside,  was  so  unaltered 
that  it  has  been  used  for  modern  buildings.   It  is  evident,  there- 
fore, that  in  such  circumstances  there  must  be  a  very  slow  and 
long-continued  chemical  action,  partly  owing  to  the  slow  pene- 
tration of  the  mass  of  lime  by  the  external  carbonic  acid,  partly 
to  the  change  going  on  in  the  remains  of  animal  matter,  at  all 
events  as  long  as  any  is  left.    In  the  above  case,  this  must  have 
gone  on  in  Pfeffel's  garden,  and,  as  we  know  that  chemical  ac- 
tion is  invariably  associated  with  light,  visible  to  the  sensitive, 
this  must  have  been  the  origin  of  the  luminous  appearance, 
which  again  must  have  continued  until  the  mutual  affinities  of 
the  organic  remains,  the  lime,  the  air,  and  water,  had  finally 
come  to  a  state  of  chemical  rest  or  equilibrium.    As  soon,  there- 
fore, as  a  sensitive  person,  although  otherwise  quite  healthy, 
came  that  way,  and  entered  into  the  sphere  of  the  force  in 
action,  he  must  feel,  by  day,  like  Mdlle.  Maix,  the  sensations  so 
often  described,  and  see  by  night,  like  Mdlle.  Reichel,  the  lumi- 
nous appearance.   Ignorance,  fear,  and  superstition,  would  dress 
up  the  feebly-shining,  vaporous  light  into  a  human  form,  and  fur- 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


nish  it  with  human  limbs  and  members;  just  as  we  can  at 
pleasure  fancy  every  cloud  in  the  sky  to  represent  a  man  or  a 
demon. 

"  The  wish  to  strike  a  fatal  blow  at  the  monster  superstition, 
which,  at  no  distant  period,  poured  out  upon  European  society 
from  a  similar  source,  such  inexpressible  misery,  when,  in  trials 
for  witchcraft,  not  hundreds,  not  thousands,  but  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  innocent  human  beings  perished  miserably,  either 
on  the  scaffold,  at  the  stake,  or  by  the  effects  of  torture  —  this 
desire  induced  the  author  to  try  the  experiment  of  bringing,  if 
possible,  a  highly-sensitive  patient  by  night  to  a  churchyard.  It 
appeared  possible  that  such  a  person  might  see,  over  graves  in 
which  mouldering  bodies  lie,  something  similar  to  that  which 
Billing  had  seen.  Mdlle.  Reichel  had  the  courage,  rare  in  her 
6exr  to  gratify  this  wish  of  the  author.  On  two  very  dark 
nights  she  allowed  herself  to  be  taken  from  the  castle  of  Reisen- 
berg,  where  she  was  living  with  the  author's  family,  *to  the 
neighboring  churchyard  of  Grunzing.  The  result  justified  his 
anticipation  in  the  most  beautiful  manner.  She  very  soon  saw 
a  light,  and  observed  on  one  of  the  graves,  along  its  length,  a 
delicate,  breathing  flame  :  she  also  saw  the  same  thing,  only 
weaker  on  the  second  grave.  But  she  saw  neither  witches  nor 
ghosts ;  she  described  the  fiery  appearances  as  a  shining  vapor, 
one  to  two  spans  high,  extending  as  far  as  the  grave,  and  float- 
ing near  its  surface.  Some  time  afterward  she  was  taken  to 
two  large  cemeteries  near  Vienna,  where  several  burials  occur 
daily,  and  graves  lie  about  by  thousands.  Here  she  saw  nu- 
merous graves  provided  with  similar  lights.  Wherever  she 
looked,  she  saw  luminous  masses  scattered  about.  But  this 
appearance  was  most  vivid  over  the  newest  graves,  while  in  the 
oldest  it  could  not  be  perceived.  She  described  the  appearance 
less  as  a  clear  flame  than  as  a  dense,  vaporous  mass  of  fire,  inter- 
mediate between  fog  and  flame.  On  many  graves  the  flames  were 
four  feet  high,  so  that  when  she  stood  on  them,  it  surrounded  her 
up  to  the  neck.  If  she  thrust  her  hand  into  it,  it  was  like  putting 
it  into  a  dense,  fiery  cloud.  She  betrayed  no  uneasiness,  be- 
cause she  had  all  her  life  been  accustomed  to  such  emanations, 


CHEMICAL  EMANATIONS. 


109 


and  had  seen  the  same,  in  the  author's  experiments,  often  pro- 
duced by  natural  causes. 

11  Many  ghost-stories  will  now  find  their  natural  explanation. 
We  can  also  see  that  it  was  not  altogether  erroneous,  when  old 
women  declared  that  all  had  not  the  gift  to  see  the  departed 
wandering  about  their  graves  ;  for  it  must  have  always  been  the 
sensitive  alone  who  were  able  to  perceive  the  light  given  out 
by  the  chemical  action  going  on  in  the  corpse.  The  author  has 
thus,  he  hopes,  succeeded  in  tearing  down  one  of  the  most  im- 
penetrable barriers  erected  by  dark  ignorance  and  superstitious 
folly  against  the  progress  of  natural  truth." 

"  (The  reader  will  at  once  apply  the  above  most  remarkable 
experiments  to  the  explanation  of  corpse-lights  in  churchyards, 
which  were  often  visible  to  the  gifted  alone  —  to  those  who  had 
the  second-sight,  for  example.  Many  nervous  or  hysterical  fe- 
males must  often  have  been  alarmed  by  white,  faintly-luminous 
objects'in  dark  churchyards,  to  which  objects  fear  has  given  a 
defined  form.  In  this,  as  well  as  in  numerous  other  points, 
which  will  force  themselves  on  the  attention  of  the  careful  reader 
of  both  works,  Baron  Reichenbach's  experiments  illustrate  the 
experiences  of  the  Seeress  of  Prevorst.  —  W.  G.)"* 

That  the  flames  here  described  may  have  originated  in  chem- 
ical action,  is  an  opinion  I  have  no  intention  of  disputing ;  the 
fact  may  possibly  be  so ;  such  a  phenomenon  has  frequently 
been  observed  hovering  over  coffins  and  decomposing  flesh  : 
but  I  confess  I  can  not  perceive  the  slightest  grounds  for  the 
assertion  that  it  was  the  ignorance,  fear,  and  superstition,  of 
Billing,  who  was  an  evangelical  clergyman,  that  caused  him  to 
dress  up  this  vaporous  light  in  a  human  form  and  supply  it  with 
members,  &c.  In  the  first  place,  I  see  no  proof  adduced  that 
Billing  was  either  ignorant  or  superstitious,  or  even  afraid  — 
the  feelings  he  complained  of  appearing  to  be  rather  physical 
than  moral ;  and  it  must  be  a  weak  person  indeed,  who,  in  com- 
pany with  another,  could  be  excited  to  such  a  freak  of  the  im- 
agination.   It  is  easily  comprehensible  that  that  which  appeared 

*  This  very  curious  work  1  have  translated  from  the  German.  Published  by 
Moore,  London. —  C.  C. 


110 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


only  a  luminous  vapor  by  day,  might,  when  reflected  on  a  darker 
atmosphere,  present  a  defined  form;  and  the  suggestion  of  this 
possibility  might  lead  to  some  curious  speculations  with  regard 
to  a  mystery  called  the  palinganesia,  said  to  have  been  prac- 
tised by  some  of  the  chemists  and  alchemists  of  the  sixteenth 
century. 

Gaffarillus,  in  his  book,  entitled  u  Curiosites  Inouics"  pub- 
lished in  1G50,  when  speaking  on  the  subject  of  talismans,  sig- 
natures, &c,  observes  that,  since  in  many  instances  the  plants 
used  for  these  purposes  were  reduced  to  ashes,  and  no  longer 
retained  their  form,  their  efficacy,  which  depended  on  their 
figure,  should  inevitably  be  destroyed  ;  but  this,  he  says,  is  not 
the  case,  since,  by  an  admirable  potency  existing  in  nature, 
the  form,  though  invisible,  is  still  retained  in  the  ashes.  This, 
he  observes,  may  appear  strange  to  those  who  have  never  at- 
tended to  the  subject;  but  he  asserts  that  an  account  of  the 
experiment  will  be  found  in  the  works  of  Mr.  Du  Chestie,  one 
of  the  best  chemists  of  the  period,  who  had  been  shown,  by  a 
Polish  physician  at  Cracow,  certain  vials  containing  ashes,  which, 
when  duly  heated,  exhibited  the  forms  of  various  plants.  A 
small  obscure  cloud  was  first  observed,  which  gradually  took 
on  a  defined  form,  and  presented  to  the  eye  a  rose,  or  whatever 
plant  or  flower  the  ashes  consisted  of.  Mr.  Du  Chesne,  how- 
ever, had  never  been  able  to  repeat  the  experiment,  though  he 
had  made  several  unsuccessful  attempts  to  do  so ;  but  at  length 
he  succeeded,  by  accident,  in  the  following  manner  :  Having 
for  some  purpose  extracted  the  salts  from  some  burnt  nettles, 
and  having  left  the  ley  outside  the  house  all  night,  to  cool,  in 
the  morning  he  found  it  frozen ;  and,  to  his  surprise,  the  form 
and  figure  of  the  nettles  were  so  exactly  represented  on  the 
ice,  that  the  living  plant  could  not  be  more  perfect.  Delighted 
at  this  discovery,  he  summoned  Mr.  De  Luynes,  parliamentary 
councillor,  to  behold  this  curiosity  ;  whence,  he  says,  they  both 
concluded  that,  when  a  body  dies,  its  form  or  figure  still  resides 
in  its  ashes. 

Kircher,  Vallemont,  Digby,  and  others,  are  said  to  have  prac- 
tised this  art  of  resuscitating  the  forms  of  plants  from  their  ashes 


THE  PALINGANESIA. 


Ill 


and  at  the  meeting  of  naturalists  at  Stuttgard,  in  1834,  a  Swiss 
savant  seems  to  have  revived  the  subject,  and  given  a  receipt 
for  the  experiment,  extracted  from  a  work  by  Oetinger,  called 
"Thoughts  on  the  Birth  and  Generation  of  Things."  —  "The 
earthly  husk,"  says  Oetinger,  "  remains  in  the  retort,  while  the 
volatile  essence  ascends,  like  a  spirit,  perfect  in  form,  but  void 
of  substance." 

But  Oetinger  also  records  another  discovery  of  this  descrip- 
tion, which,  he  says,  he  fell  upon  unawares.  A  woman  having 
brought  him  a  large  bunch  of  balm,  he  laid  it  under  the  tiles, 
which  were  yet  warm  with  the  summer's  heat,  where  it  dried 
in  the  shade.  But,  it  being  in  the  month  of  September,  the 
cold  soon  came,  and  contracted  the  leaves,  without  expelling 
the  volatile  salts.  They  lay  there  till  the  following  June,  when 
he  chopped  up  the  balm,  put  it  into  a  glass  retort,  poured  rain- 
water upon  it,  and  placed  a  receiver  above.  He  afterward 
heated  it  till  the  water  boiled,  and  then  increased  the  heat — 
whereupon  there  appeared  on  the  water  a  coat  of  yellow  oil, 
about  the  thickness  of  the  back  of  a  knife,  and  this  oil  shaped 
itself  into  the  forms  of  innumerable  balm-leaves,  which  did  not 
run  one  into  another,  but  remained  perfectly  distinct  and  de- 
fined, and  exhibited  all  the  marks  that  are  seen  in  the  leaves 
of  the  plant.  Oetinger  says  he  kept  the  fluid  some  time,  and 
showed  it  to  a  number  of  people.  At  length,  wishing  to  throw 
it  away,  he  shook  it,  and  the  leaves  ran  into  one  another  with 
the  disturbance  of  the  oil,  but  resumed  their  distinct  shape  again 
as  soon  as  it  was  at  rest,  the  fluid  form  retaining  the  perfect 
signature. 

Now,  how  far  these  experiments  are  really  practicable,  I  can 
not  say ;  their  not  being  repeated,  or  not  being  repeated  sue 
cessfully,  is  no  very  decided  argument  against  their  possibility, 
as  all  persons  acquainted  with  the  annals  of  chemistry  well 
know  ;  but  there  is  certainly  a  curious  coincidence  between 
these  details  and  the  experience  of  Billing,  where  it  is  to  be 
observed  that,  according  to  his  account  —  and  what  right  have 
we  to  dispute  it?  —  the  figure,  after  being  disturbed  by  PfefFel, 
always  resumed  its  original  form.    The  same  peculiarity  has 


112 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


been  observed  with  respect  to  some  apparitions,  where  the 
spectator  has  been  bold  enough  to  try  the  experiment.  In  a 
letter  to  Dr.  Bentley,  from  the  Rev.  Thomas  Wilkins,  curate  of 
Warblington,  in  Hampshire,  written  in  the  year  1695,  wherein 
he  gives  an  account  of  an  apparition  which  haunted  the  parsonage- 
house,  and  which  he  himself  and  several  other  persons  had  seen, 
he  particularly  mentions  that,  thinking  it  might  be  some  fellow 
hid  in  the  room,  he  put  his  arm  out  to  feel  it,  and  his  hand 
seemingly  went  through  the  body  of  it,  and  felt  no  manner  of 
substance,  until  it  reached  the  wall.  "  Then  I  drew  back  my 
hand,  but  still  the  apparition  was  in  the  same  place." 

Yet  this  spectre  did  not  appear  above  or  near  a  grave,  but 
moved  from  place  to  place,  and  gave  considerable  annoyance 
to  the  inhabitants  of  the  rectory. 

With  respect  to  the  lights  over  the  graves,  sufficing  to  account 
for  the  persuasion  regarding  what  are  called  corpse-candles, 
they  certainly,  up  to  a  certain  point,  afford  a  very  satisfactory 
explanation,  but  that  explanation  does  not  comprehend  the 
whole  of  the  mystery ;  for  most  of  those  persons  who  have  pro- 
fessed to  see  corpse-candles,  have  also  asserted  that  they  were 
not  always  stationary  over  the  graves,  but  sometimes  moved 
from  place  to  place,  as  in  the  following  instance,  related  to  me 
by  a  gentleman  who  assured  me  that  he  received  the  account 
from  the  person  who  witnessed  the  phenomenon.  Now,  this 
last  fact  —  I  mean  the  locomotion  of  the  lights  —  will,  ofVourse, 
be  disputed  ;  but  so  was  their  existence  :  yet  they  exist,  for  all 
that,  and  may  travel  from  place  to  place,  for  anything  we  know 
to  the  contrary. 

The  story  related  to  me,  or  a  similar  instance,  is,  I  think, 
mentioned  by  Mrs.  Grant ;  but  it  was  to  the  effect  that  a  minis- 
ter, newly  inducted  in  his  cure,  was  standing  one  evening  lean- 
ing over  the  wall  of  the  churchyard  which  adjoined  the  manse, 
when  he  observed  a  light  hovering  over  a  particular  spot.  Sup- 
posing it  to  be  somebody  with  a  lantern,  he  opened  the  wicket 
and  went  forward  to  ascertain  who  it  might  be ;  but  before  he 
reached  the  spot,  the  light  moved  onward  ;  and  he  followed, 
but  could  see  nobody.    It  did  not  rise  far  from  the  ground,  but 


CORPSE. CANDLES  — REMARKABLE  DREAM.  113 


advanced  rapidly  across  the  road,  entered  a  wood,  and  ascended 
a  hill,  till  it  at  length  disappeared  at  the  door  of  a  farmhouse. 
Unable  to  comprehend  of  what  nature  this  light  could  be,  the 
minister  was  deliberating  whether  to  make  inquiries  at  the 
house  or  return,  when  it  appeared  again,  seeming  to  come  out 
of  the  house,  accompanied  by  another,  passed  him,  and,  going 
over  the  same  ground,  they  fyoth  disappeared  on  the  spot  where 
he  had  first  observed  the  phenomenon.  He  left  a  mark  on  the 
grave  by  which  he  might  recognise  it,  and  the  next  day  inquired 
of  the  sexton  whose  it  was.  The  man  said  it  belonged  to  a 
family  that  lived  up  the  hill  (indicating  the  house  the  light  had 

stopped  at),  named  M'D  ,  but  that  it  was  a  considerable 

time  since  any  one  had  been  buried  there.  The  minister  was 
extremely  surprised  to  learn,  in  the  course  of  the  day,  that  a 
child  of  that  family  had  died  of  scarlet  fever  on  the  preceding 
evening. 

With  respect  to  the  class  of  phenomena  accompanied  by  this 
phosphorescent  light,  I  shall  have  more  to  say  by-and-by.  The 
above  will  appear  a  very  incredible  story  to  many  people,  and 
there  was  a  time  that  it  would  have  appeared  equally  so  to  my- 
self ;  but  I  have  met  with  so  much  strange  corroborative  evi- 
dence, that  I  no  longer  feel  myself  entitled  to  reject  it.  I  asked 
the  gentleman  who  told  me  the  story,  whether  he  believed  it ; 
he  said  that  he  could  not  believe  in  anything  of  the  sort.  I  then 
inquired  if  he  would  accept  the  testimony  of  that  minister  on 
any  other  question,  and  he  answered,  "  Most  assuredly."  As, 
however,  I  shall  have  occasion  to  recur  to  this  subject  in  a  sub- 
sequent chapter,  I  will  leave  it  aside  for  the  present,  and  relate 
some  of  the  facts  which  led  me  to  the  consideration  of  the  above 
theories  and  experiments. 

Dr.  S  relates  that  a  Madame  T  ,  in  Prussia,  dreamed, 

on  the  16th  of  March,  1832,  that  the  door  opened,  and  her  god- 
father, Mr.  D  ,  who  was  much  attached  to  her,  entered  the 

room,  dressed  as  he  usually  was  when  prepared  for  church  on 
Sundays  ;  and  that,  knowing  him  to  be  in  bad  health,  she  asked 
him  what  he  was  doing  abroad  at  such  an  early  hour,  and 
whether  he  was  quite  well  again.    Whereupon,  he  answered 


114 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


that  he  was  ;  and,  being  about  to  undertake  a  very  long  jour- 
ney, he  had  come  to  bid  her  farewell,  and  to  intrust  her  with  a 
commission,  which  was,  that  she  would  deliver  a  letter  he  had 
written  to  his  wife;  but  accompanying  it  with  an  injunction 
that  she  (the  wife)  was  not  to  open  it  till  that  day  four  years, 
when  he  would  return  himself,  precisely  at  five  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  to  fetch  the  answer,  till  which  period  he  charged  her 
not  to  break  the  seal.  He  then  handed  her  a  letter,  sealed  with 
black,  the  writing  on  which  shone  through  the  paper,  so  that 
she  (the  dreamer)  was  able  to  perceive  that  it  contained  an  an- 
nouncement to  Mrs.  D  ,  the  wife,  with  whom,  on  account 

of  the  levity  of  her  character,  he  had  long  lived  unhappily,  that 
she  would  die  at  that  time  four  years. 

At  this  moment,  the  sleeper  was  awakened  by  what  appeared 
to  her  a  pressure  of  the  hand ;  and,  feeling  an  entire  conviction 
that  this  was  something  more  than  an  ordinary  dream,  she  was 
not  surprised  to  learn  that  her  god-father  was  dead.  She  re- 
lated the  dream  to  Madame  D  ,  omitting,  however,  to  men- 
tion the  announcement  contained  in  the  letter,  which  she  thought 
the  dream  plainly  indicated  was  not  to  be  communicated.  The 
widow  laughed  at  the  story,  soon  resumed  her  gay  life,  and 
married  again.    In  the  winter  of  lS3o-'6,  however,  she  was 

attacked  by  an  intermittent  fever,  on  which  occasion  Dr.  S  

was  summoned  to  attend  her.  After  various  vicissitudes,  she 
finally  sunk;  and,  on  the  16th  of  March,  1836,  exactly  at  five 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  she  suddenly  started  up  in  her  bed, 
and,  fixing  her  eyes  apparently  on  some  one  she  saw  standing 
at  the  foot,  she  exclaimed :  "  What*  are  you  come  for  1  God  be 
gracious  to  me!  I  never  believed  it!"  She  then  sank  back, 
closed  her  eyes,  which  she  never  opened  again,  and,  in  a  quar- 
ter of  an  hour  afterward,  expired  very  calmly. 

A  friend  of  mine,  Mrs.  M  ,  a  native  of  the  West  Indies, 

was  at  Blair  Logie  at  the  period  of  the  death  of  Dr.  Abercrom- 
bie,  in  Edinburgh,  with  whom  she  was  extremely  intimate. 
Dr.  A.  died  quite  suddenly,  without  any  previous  indisposition, 
just  as  he  was  about  to  go  out  in  his  carriage,  at  11  o'clock  on 
a  Thursday  morning.    On  the  night  between  the  Thursday  and 


REMARKABLE  DREAM. 


115 


Friday,  Mrs.  M  dreamed  that  she  saw  the  family  of  Dr.  A. 

all  dressed  in  white,  dancing  a  solemn  funereal  dance ;  upon 
which  she  awoke,  wondering  that  she  should  have  dreamed  a 
thing  so  incongruous,  since  it  was  contrary  to  their  custom  to 
dance  on  any  occasion.  Immediately  afterward,  while  speak- 
ing to  her  maid  who  had  come  to  call  her,  she  saw  Dr.  Aber- 
crombie  against  the  wall,  with  his  jaw  fallen,  and  a  livid  coun- 
tenance, mournfully  shaking  his  head  as  he  looked  at  her.  She 
passed  the  day  in  great  uneasiness,  and  wrote  to  inquire  for  the 
doctor,  relating  what  had  happened,  and  expressing  her  cer- 
tainty that  he  was  dead  ;  the  letter  was  seen  by  several  persons 
in  Edinburgh  on  the  day  of  its  arrival. 

The  two  following  cases  seem  rather  to  belong  to  what  is 
called,  in  the  east,  second  hearing, — although  sympathy  was 
probably  the  exciting  cause  of  the  phenomena.  A  lady  and 
gentleman  in  Berwickshire  were  awakened  one  night  by  a  loud 
cry,  which  they  both  immediately  recognised  to  proceed  from 
the  voice  of  their  son,  who  was  then  absent  and  at  a  consider- 
able distance.  Tidings  subsequently  reached  them,  that  exactly 
at  that  period  their  son  had  fallen  overboard  and  was  drowned. 
On  another  occasion,  in  Perthshire,  a  person  aroused  her  hus- 
band one  night,  saying  that  their  son  was  drowned,  for  she 
had  been  awakened  by  the  splash.  Her  presentiment  also 
proved  too  well  founded,  the  young  man  having  fallen  from  the 
mast-head  of  the  ship.  In  both  cases,  we  may  naturally  con- 
clude that  the  thoughts  of  the  young  men,  at  the  moment  of 
the  accident,  would  rush  homeward ;  and,  admitting  Dr.  Enne- 
moser's  theory  of  polarity,  the  passive  sleepers  became  the 
recipients  of  the  force.  I  confess,  however,  that  the  opinions 
of  another  section  of  philosophers  appear  to  me  to  be  more 
germain  to  the  matter ;  although,  to  many  persons,  they  will 
doubtless  be  difficult  of  acceptance,  from  their  appertaining  to 
those  views  commonly  called  mystical. 

These  psychologists  then  believe,  as  did  Socrates  and  Plato, 
and  others  of  the  ancients,  that  in  certain  conditions  of  the 
body,  which  conditions  may  arise  naturally,  or  be  produced 
artificially,  the  links  which  unite  ut  with  the  spirit  may  be  more 


116 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


or  less  loosened ;  and  that  the  latter  may  thus  be  temporarily- 
disjoined  from  the  former,  and  so  enjoy  a  foretaste  of  its  future 
destiny.  .  In  the  lowest  or  first  degree  of  this  disunion,  we  are 
awake,  though  scarcely  conscious,  while  the  imagination  is 
vivified  to  an  extraordinary  amount,  and  our  fancy  supplies 
images  almost  as  lively  as  the  realities.  This  probably  is  the 
temporary  condition  of  inspired  poets  and  eminent  discoverers. 

Sleep  is  considered  another  stage  of  this  disjunction ;  and 
the  question  has  ever  been  raised  whether,  when  the  body  is  in 
profound  sleep,  the  spirit  is  not  altogether  free  and  living  in 
another  world,  while  the  organic  life  proceeds  as  usual,  and 
sustains  the  temple  till  the  return  of  its  inhabitant.  Without 
at  present  attempting  to  support  or  refute  this  doctrine,  I  will 
only  observe,  that  once  admitting  the  possibility  of  the  disunion, 
all  consideration  of  time  must  be  set  aside  as  irrelevant  to  the 
question ;  for  spirit,  freed  from  matter,  must  move  with  the 
rapidity  of  thought;  —  in  short,  a  spirit  must  be  where  its 
thoughts  and  affections  are. 

It  is  the  opinion  of  these  psychologists,  however,  that  in  the 
normal  and  healthy  condition  of  man,  the  union  of  body,  soul, 
and  spirit,  is  most  complete,  and  that  all  the  degrees  of  dis- 
union in  the  waking  state  are  degrees  of  morbid  derangement. 
Hence  it  is  that  somnambulists  and  clairvoyants  are  chiefly  to 
be  found  among  sickly  women.  There  have  been  persons  who 
have  appeared  to  possess  a  power  which  they  could  exert  at 
will,  whereby  they  withdrew  from  their  bodies,  these  remain- 
ing during  the  absence  of  the  spirit  in  a  state  of  catalepsy, 
scarcely  if  at  all  to  be  distinguished  from  death. 

I  say  withdrew  from  their  bodies,  assuming  that  to  be  the 
explanation  of  the  mystery  ;  for,  of  course,  it  is  but  an  assump- 
tion. Epimenides  is  recorded  to  have  possessed  this  faculty; 
and  Hermotinus,  of  Clazomenes,  is  said  to  have  wandered,  in 
spirit,  over  the  world,  while  his  body  lay  apparently  dead.  At 
length  his  wife,  taking  advantage  of  this  absence  of  his  soul, 
burned  his  body  and  thus  intercepted  its  return  :  so  say  Lucien 
and  Pliny  the  elder  ;  —  and  Varro  relates,  that  the  eldest  of  two 
brothers,  named  Corfidius,  being  supposed  to  die,  his  will  was 


CASES  OF  TRANCE. 


117 


opened  and  preparations  were  made  for  his  funeral  by  the  other 
brother,  who  was  declared  his  heir.  In  the  meantime,  how- 
ever, Corfidius  revived,  and  told  the  astonished  attendants, 
whom  he  summoned  by  clapping  his  hands,  that  he  had  just 
come  from  his  younger  brother,  who  had  committed  his  daugh- 
ter to  his  care,  and  informed  him  where  he  had  buried  some 
gold,  requesting  that  the  funeral  preparations  he  had  made 
might  be  converted  to  his  own  use.  Immediately  afterward, 
the  news  arrived  that  the  younger  brother  was  unexpectedly 
deceased,  and  the  gold  was  found  at  the  place  indicated.  The 
last  appears  to  have  been  a  case  of  natural  trance ;  but  the  two 
most  remarkable  instances  of  voluntary  trance  I  have  met  with 
in  modern  times  is  that  of  Colonel  Townshend,  and  the  der- 
vish who  allowed  himself  to  be  buried.  With  regard  to  the 
former,  he  could,  to  all  appearance,  die  whenever  he  pleased  ; 
his  heart  ceased  to  beat ;  there  was  no  perceptible  respiration  ; 
and  his  whole  frame  became  cold  and  rigid  as  death  itself ;  the 
features  being  shrunk  and  colorless,  and  the  eyes  glazed  and 
ghastly.  He  would  continue  in  this  state  for  several  hours  and 
then  gradually  revive ;  but  the  revival  does  not  appear  to  have 
been  an  effort  of  will  —  or  rather,  we  are  not  informed  whether 
it  was  so  or  not.  Neither  are  we  told  whether  he  brought  any 
recollections  back  with  him,  nor  how  this  strange  faculty  was 
first  developed  or  discovered  —  all  very  important  points,  and 
well  worthy  of  investigation* 

*  Since  the  above  was  penned,  I  find  from  the  account  of  Dr.  Cheyne,  who 
attended  him,  that  Colonel  Townshend's  own  way  of  describing  the  phenome- 
non to  which  he  was  subject,  was,  that  he  "could  die,  or  expire,  when  he  pleased  ; 
and  yet,  by  an  effort  or  somelww,  he  could  come  to  life  again."  He  performed 
the  experiment  in  the  presence  of  three  medical  men,  one  of  whom  kept  his  hand 
on  his  heart,  another  held  his  wrist,  and  the  third  placed  a  looking-glass  before  nis 
lips ;  and  they  found  that  all  traces  of  respiration  and  pulsation  gradually  ceased, 
insomuch  that,  after  consulting  about  his  condition  for  some  time,  they  were  leav- 
ing the  room,  persuaded  that  he  was  really  dead,  when  signs  of  life  appeared  and 
he  slowly  revived.  He  did  not  die  while  repeating  this  experiment,  as  has  been 
sometimes  stated. 

This  reviving  "by  an  effort  or  somehow,"  seems  to  be  better  explained  by  the 
hypothesis  I  have  suggested,  than  by  any  other — namely,  that,  as  in  the  case  of 
»   Mr.  Holloway  (mentioned  on  page  120),  his  spirit,  or  soul,  was  released  from  his 
body,  but  a  sufficient  rapport  was  maintained  to  reunite  them. 


1*8 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


With  respect  to  the  dervish,  or  fakeer,  an  account  of  hi. 
singular  faculty  was,  1  believe,  first  presented  to  the  public  in 
the  Calcutta  papers  about  nine  or  ten  years  ago.  He  had  then 
frequently  exhibited  it  for  the  satisfaction  of  the  natives ;  but 
subsequently  he  was  put  to  the  proof  by  some  of  the  European 
officers  and  residents.  Captain  Wade,  political  agent  at  Lood- 
hiana,  was  present  when  he  was  disinterred,  ten  months  after 
he  had  been  buried  by  General  Ventura,  in  presence  of  the 
maharajah  and  many  of  his  principal  sirdars. 

It  appears  that  the  man  previously  prepared  himself  by  some 
processes,  which,  he  says,  temporarily  annihilate  the  powers  of 
digestion,  so  that  milk  received  into  the  stomach  undergoes  no 
change.  He  next  forces  all  the  breath  in  his  body  into  his 
brain,  which  becomes  very  hot,  upon  which  the  lungs  collapse, 
and  the  heart  ceases  to  beat.  He  then  stops  up,  with  wax, 
every  aperture  of  the  body  through  which  air  could  enter, 
except  the  mouth,  but  the  tongue  is  so  turned  back  as  to  close 
the  gullet,  upon  which  a  state  of  insensibility  ensues.  He  is 
then  stripped  and  put  into  a  linen  bag ;  and,  on  the  occasion  in 
question,  this  bag  was  sealed  with  Runjeet  Sing's  own  seal. 
It  was  then  placed  in  a  deal  box,  which  was  also  locked  and 
sealed,  and  the  box  being  buried  in  a  vault,  the  earth  was 
thrown  over  it  and  trod  down,  after  which  a  crop  of  barley  was 
sown  on  the  spot,  and  sentries  placed  to  watch  it.  The  ma- 
harajah, however,  was  so  skeptical,  that,  in  spite  of  all  these 
precautions,  he  had  him,  twice  in  the  course  of  the  ten  months, 
dug  up  and  examined,  and  each  time  he  was  found  to  be 
exactly  in  the  same  state  as  when  they  had  shut  him  up. 

When  he  is  disinterred,  the  first  step  toward  his  recovery  is 
to  turn  back  his  tongue,  which  is  found  quite  stiff,  and  requires 
for  some  time  to  be  retained  in  its  proper  position  by  the  finger  ; 
warm  water  is  poured  upon  him,  and  his  eyes  and  lips  moist- 
ened with  ghee,  or  oil.  His  recovery  is  much  more  rapid  than 
might  be  expected,  and  he  is  soon  able  to  recognise  the  bystand- 
ers, and  converse.  He  says,  that,  during  this  state  of  trance, 
his  dreams  are  ravishing,  and  that  it  is  very  painful  to  be  awa- 
kened ;  but  I  do  not  know  that  he  has  ever  disclosed  any  of  his 


CASES  OF  TRANCE. 


119 


experiences.  His  only  apprehension  seems  to  be,  lest  he  should 
be  attacked  by  insects,  to  avoid  which  accident  the  box  is  slung 
to  the  ceiling.  The  interval  seems  to  be  passed  in  a  complete 
state  of  hibernation  ;  and  when  he  is  taken  up,  no  pulse  is  per- 
ceptible, and  his  eyes  are  glazed  like  those  of  a  corpse. 

He  subsequently  refused  to  submit  to  the  conditions  proposed 
by  some  English  officers,  and  thus  incurred  their  suspicions, 
that  the  whole  thing  was  an  imposition  ;  but  the  experiment  has 
been  too  often  repeated  by  people  very  well  capable  of  judging, 
and  under  too  stringent  precautions,  to  allow  of  this  mode  of 
escaping  the  difficulty.  The  man  assumes  to  be  holy,  and  is 
very  probably  a  worthless  fellow,  but  that  does  not  affect  the 
question  one  way  or  the  other.  Indian  princes  do  not  permit 
themselves  to  be  imposed  on  with  impunity ;  and,  as  Runjeet 
Sing  would  not  value  the  man's  life  at  a  pin's  point,  he  would 
neglect  no  means  of  debarring  him  all  access  to  food  or  air. 

In  the  above  quoted  cases,  except  in  those  of  Corfidius  and 
Hermotinus,  the  absence  of  the  spirit  is  alone  suggested  to  the 
spectator  by  the  condition  of  the  body  ;  since  the  memory  of 
one  state  does  not  appear  to  have  been  carried  into  the  other  — 
if  the  spirit  wandered  into  other  regions  it  brings  no  tidings 
back;  but  we  have  many  cases  recorded  where  this  deficient 
evidence  seems  to  be  supplied.  The  magicians  and  soothsayers 
of  the  northern  countries,  by  narcotics,  and  other  means,  pro- 
duce a  cataleptic  state  of  the  body,  resembling  death,  when 
their  prophetic  faculty  is  to  be  exercised  ;  and  although  wTe  know 
that  an  alloy  of  imposition  is  generally  mixed  up  with  these  exhi- 
bitions, still  it  is  past  a  doubt,  that  a  state  of  what  we  call  clear- 
seeing  is  thus  induced  ;  and  that  on  awaking,  they  bring  tidings 
from  various  parts  of  the  world  of  actions  then  performing  and 
events  occurring,  which  subsequent  investigations  have  verified 

One  of  the  moot  remarkable  cases  of  this  kind,  is  that  re- 
corded by  Jung  Stilling,  of  a  man,  who  about  the  year  1740, 
resided  in  the  neighborhood  of  Philadelphia,  in  the  United 
States.  His  habits  were  retired,  and  he  spoke  little  ;  he  was 
grave,  benevolent,  and  pious,  and  nothing  was  known  against 
his  character,  except  that  he  had  the  reputation  of  possessing 


120 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


some  secrets  that  were  not  altogether  lawful.  Many  extraordi* 
nary  stories  were  told  of  him,  and  among  the  rest,  the  follow- 
ing :  The  wife  of  a  ship-captain,  whose  husband  was  on  a 
voyage  to  Europe  and  Africa,  and  from  whom  she  had  been 
long  without  tidings,  overwhelmed  with  anxiety  for  his  safety, 
was  induced  to  address  herself  to  this  person.  Having  listened 
to  her  story,  he  begged  her  to  excuse  him  for  awhile,  when  he 
would  bring  her  the  intelligence  she  required.  He  then  passed 
into  an  inner  room,  and  she  sat  herself  down  to  wait;  but  his 
absence  continuing  longer  than  she  expected,  she  became  im- 
patient, thinking  he  had  forgotten  her  ;  and  so  softly  approach- 
ing the  door,  she  peeped  through  some  aperture,  and  to  her  sur- 
prise, beheld  him  lying  on  a  sofa,  as  motionless  as  if  he  was 
dead.  She  of  course,  did  not  think  it  advisable  to  disturb  him, 
but  waited  his  return,  when  he  told  her  that  her  husband  had 
not  been  able  to  write  to  her  for  such  and  such  reasons ;  but 
that  he  was  then  in  a  coffeehouse  in  London,  and  would  short- 
ly be  home  again.  Accordingly,  he  arrived,  and  as  the  lady 
learned  from  him  that  the  causes  of  his  unusual  silence  had  been 
precisely  those  alleged  by  the  man,  she  felt  extremely  desirous 
of  ascertaining  the  truth  of  the  rest  of  the  information ;  and  in 
this  she  was  gratified  ;  for  he  no  sooner  set  his  eyes  on  the  ma- 
gician than  he  said  that  he  had  seen  him  before,  on  a  certain 
day,  in  a  coffeehouse  in  London  ;  and  that  he  had  told  him  his 
wife  was  extremely  uneasy  about  him  ;  and  that  he,  the  cap- 
tain, had  thereon  mentioned  how  he  had  been  prevented  wri- 
ting ;  adding  that  he  was  on  the  eve  of  embarking  for  Ameri- 
ca. He  had  then  lost  sight  of  the  stranger  among  the  throng, 
and  knew  nothing  more  about  him. 

I  have  no  authority  for  this  story,  but  that  of  Jung  Stilling ; 
and  if  it  stood  alone,  it  might  appear  very  incredible  ;  but  it  is 
supported  by  so  many  parallel  examples  of  information  given 
by  people  in  somnambulic  states,  that  we  are  not  entitled  to 
reject  it  on  the  score  of  impossibility. 

The  late  Mr.  John  Holloway,  of  the  bank  of  England,  brother 
to  the  engraver  of  that  name,  related  of  himself  that  being  one 
night  in  bed  with  his  wife  and  unable  to  sleep,  he  had  fixed  his 


CASES  OF  TRANCE. 


121 


eyes  and  thoughts  with  uncommon  intensity  on  a  beautiful  star 
that  was  shining  in  at  the  window,  when  he  suddenly  found  his 
spirit  released  from  his  body  and  soaring  into  that  bright  sphere. 
But,  instantly  seized  with  anxiety  for  the  anguish  of  his  wife, 
if  she  discovered  his  body  apparently  dead  beside  her,  he  re- 
turned, and  re-entered  it  with  difficulty  (hence,  perhaps,  the 
violent  convulsions  with  which  some  somnambules  of  the  high- 
est order  are  awakened).  He  described  that  returning,  was 
returning  to  darkness  ;  and  that  while  the  spirit  was  free,  he 
was  alternately  in  the  light  or  the  dark,  accordingly  as  his 
thoughts  were  with  his  wife  or  with  the  star.  He  said  that  he 
always  avoided  anything  that  could  produce  a  repetition  of  this 
accident,  the  consequences  of  it  being  very  distressing. 

We  know  that  by  intense  contemplation  of  this  sort,  the  der- 
vishes produce  a  state  of  ecstasy,  in  which  they  pretend  to  be 
transported  to  other  spheres  ;  and  not  only  the  seeress  of  Pre- 
vorst,  but  many  other  persons  in  a  highly  magnetic  state,  have 
asserted  the  same  thing  of  themselves  ;  and  certainly  the  singu- 
lar conformity  of  the  intelligence  they  bring  is  not  a  little  re- 
markable. 

Dr.  Kerner  relates  of  his  somnambule,  Frederica  Hauffe,  that 
one  day,  at  Weinsberg,  she  exclaimed  in  her  sleep,  "  Oh !  God !" 
She  immediately  awoke,  as  if  aroused  by  the  exclamation,1  and 
said  that  she  seemed  to  have  heard  two  voices  proceeding  from 
herself.  At  this  time  her  father  was  lying  dead  in  his  coffin,  at 
Oberstenfeld,  and  Dr.  Fohr,  the  physician,  who  had  attended 
him  in  his  illness,  was  sitting  with  another  person  in  an  adjoin- 
ing room,  with  the  door  open,  when  he  heard  the  exclamation 
"  Oh,  God  !"  so  distinctly,  that,  feeling  certain  there  was  nobody 
there,  he  hastened  to  the  coffin,  whence  the  sound  had  appeared 
to  proceed,  thinking  that  Mr.  W  's  death  had  only  been  ap- 
parent, and  that  he  was  reviving.  The  other  ^person,  who  was 
an  uncle  of  Frederica,  had  heard  nothing.  No  person  was 
discovered  from  whom  the  exclamation  could  have  proceeded, 
and  the  circumstance  remained  a  mystery  *nl  an  explanation 
ensued.  Plutarch  relates,  that  a  certain,  man,  called  Thespesiiis, 
having  fallen  from  a  great  height,  was  taken  up  apparently  dead 

6 


122 


THE  NIGHT -  SIDE  OF  NATURE 


from  the  shock,  although  no  external  wound  was  to  be  discov- 
ered. On  the  third  day  after  the  accident,  however,  when  ihey 
were  about  to  bury  him,  he  unexpectedly  revived ;  and  it  was 
afterward  observed,  to  the  surprise  of  all  who  knew  him,  that, 
from  being  a  vicious  reprobate,  he  became  one  of  the  most  vir- 
tuous of  men.  On  being  interrogated  with  respect  to  the  cause 
of  the  change,  he  related  that,  during  the  period  of  his  bodily 
insensibility,  it  appeared  to  him  that  he  was  dead,  and  that  he 
had  been  first  plunged  into  the  depths  of  an  ocean,  out  of  which, 
however  he  soon  emerged,  and  then,  at  one  view,  the  whole  of 
space  was  disclosed  to  him.  Everything  appeared  in  a  differ- 
ent aspect,  and  the  dimensions  of  the  planetary  bodies,  and  the 
intervals  between  them,  were  tremendous,  while  his  spirit 
seemed  to  float  in  a  sea  of  light,  like  a  ship  in  calm  waters.  He 
also  described  many  other  things  that  he  had  seen.  He  said  that 
the  souls  of  the  dead,  on  quitting  the  body,  appeared  like  a 
bubble  of  light,  out  of  which  a  human  form  was  quickly  evolved. 
That  of  these,  some  shot  away  at  once  in  a  direct  line,  with 
great  rapidity,  while  others,  on  the  contrary,  seemed  unable  to 
find  their  due  course,  and  continued  to  hover  about,  going 
hither  and  thither,  till  at  length  they  also  darted  away  in  one 
direction  or  another.  He  recognised  few  of  these  persons  he 
saw,  Jbut  those  whom  he  did,  and  sought  to  address,  appeared 
as  if  they  were  stunned  and  amazed,  and  avoided  him  with  ter- 
ror. Their  voices  were  indistinct,  and  seemed  to  be  uttering 
vague  lamentings.  There  were  others,  also,  who  floated  far- 
ther from  the  earth,  who  looked  bright,  and  were  gracious; 
these  avoided  the  approach  of  the  last.  In  short,  the  demeanor 
and  appearance  of  these  spirits  manifested  clearly  their  degrees 
of  joy  or  grief.  Thespesius  was  then  informed  by  one  of  them, 
that  he  was  not  dead,  but  that  he  had  been  permitted  to  come 
there  by  a  Divine  decree,  and  that  his  soul,  which  was  yet 
attached  to  his  bocly,  as  by  an  anchor,  would  return  to  it  again. 
Thespesius  then  observed  that  he  was  different  to  the  dead  by 
whom  he  was  surrounded,  and  this  observation  seemed  to 
restore  him  to  his  recollection.  They  were  transparent  and 
environed  by  a  radiance,  but  he  seemed  to  trail  after  him  a  dark 


CASES  OF  TRANCE.  123 

ray,  or  line  of  shadow.  These  spirits  also  presented  very  dif- 
ferent aspects ;  some  were  entirely  pervaded  by  a  mild,  clear 
radiance,  like  that  of  the  full  moon ;  through  others  there  ap- 
peared faint  streaks,  that  diminished  this  splendor ;  while  oth- 
ers, on  the  contrary,  were  distinguished  by  spots,  or  stripes  of 
black,  or  of  a  dark  color,  like  the  marks  on  the  skin  of  a  viper. 

There  is  a  circumstance  which  I  can  not  help  here  mention 
ing  in  connection  with  this^iistory  of  Thespesius,  which  on  first 
reading  struck  me  very  forcibly. 

About  three  years  ago,  I  had  several  opportunities  of  seeing 
two  young  girls,  then  under  the  care  of  a  Mr.  A  ,  of  Edin- 
burgh, who  hoped,  chiefly  by  means  of  magnetism,  to  restore 
them  to  sight.  One  was  a  maid-servant  afflicted  with  amauro- 
sis, whom  he  had  taken  into  his  house  from  a  charitable  desire 
to  be  of  use  to  her ;  the  other,  who  had  been  blind  from  her 
childhood,  was  a  young  lady  in  better  circumstances,  the  daugh- 
ter of  respectable  tradespeople  in  the  north  of  England.  The 
girl  with  amaurosis  was  restored  to  sight,  and  the  other  was  so 
far  benefited  that  she  could  distinguish  houses,  trees,  carriages, 
&c,  and  at  length,  though  obscurely,  the  features  of  a  person 
near  her.  At  this  period  of  the  cure  she  was,  unhappily, 
removed,  and  may  possibly  have  relapsed  into  her  former  state. 
My  reason,  however,  for  alluding  to  these  young  women  on  this 
occasion  is,  that  they  were  in  the  habit  of  saying,  when  in  the 
magnetic  state  —  for  they  were  both,  more  or  less,  clairvoy- 

antes  —  that  the  people  whom  Dr.  A  was  magnetizing,  in 

the  same  room,  presented  very  different  appearances.  Some  of 
them  they  described  as  looking  bright,  while  others  were,  in 
different  degrees,  streaked  with  black. 

One  or  two  they  mentioned  over  whom  there  seemed  to  hang 
a  sort  of  cloud,  like  a  ragged  veil  of  darkness.  They  also  said, 
though  this  was  before  any  tidings  of  Baron  von  Reichenbach's 
discoveries  had  reached  this  country,  that  they  saw  light  stream- 
ing from  the  fingers  of  Mr.  A  when  he  magnetized  them ; 

and  that  sometimes  his  whole  person  seemed  to  them  radiant. 

Now,  I  am  positively  certain  that  neither  Mr.  A  nor  these 

girls  had  ever  heard  of  this  story  of  Thespesius  ;  neither  had  I, 


124 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


at  that  time ;  and  I  confess,  when  I  did  meet  with  it  I  was  a  good 
deal  struck  by  the  coincidence.  These  young  people  said  that 
it  was  the  "  goodness  or  badness,"  meaning  the  moral  state,  of 
the  persons  that  was  thus  indicated.  Now,  surely,  this  concur- 
rence between  the  man  mentioned  by  Plutarch,  and  these  two 
girls  —  one  of  whom  had  no  education  whatever,  and  the  other 
very  little  —  is  worthy  of  some  regard. 

I  once  asked  a  young  person  ir#a  highly  clairvoyant  state, 
whether  she  ever  "  saw  the  spirits  of  them  that  had  passed 
away ;"  for  so  she  designated  the  dead,  never  using  the  word 
death  herself,  in  any  of  its  forms.  She  answered  me  that  she  did. 

"  Then  where  are  they  ?"  I  inquired. 

"  Some  are  waiting,  and  some  are  gone  on  before." 

"  Can  you  speak  to  them  ?"  I  asked. 

"  No,"  she  replied,  "  there  is  no  meddling  nor  direction." 

In  her  waking  state  she  would  have  been  quite  incapable  of 
these  answers ;  and  that  "  some  are  waiting  and  some  gone  on 
before,"  seems  to  be  much  in  accordance  with  the  vision  of 
Thespesius. 

Dr.  Passavent  mentions  a  peasant-boy  who,  after  a  short  but 
painful  illness,  apparently  died,  his  body  being  perfectly  stiff. 
He,  however,  revived,  complaining  bitterly  of  being  called  back 
to  life.  He  said  he  had  been  in  a  delightful  place,  and  seen  his 
deceased  relations.  •  There  was  a  great  exaltation  of  the  fac- 
ulties after  this ;  and  having  been  before  rather  stupid,  he  now, 
while  his  body  lay  stiff  and  immoveable  and  his  eyes  closed, 
prayed  and  discoursed  with  eloquence.  He  continued  in  this 
state  for  seven  weeks,  but  finally  recovered. 

In  the  year  1733,  Johann  Schwerzeger  fell  into  a  similar 
state  of  trance,  after  an  illness,  but  revived.  He  said  he  had 
seen  his  whole  life,  and  every  sin  he  had  committed,  even  those 
he  had  quite  forgotten  —  everything  had  been  as  present  to  him 
as  when  it  happened.  He  also  lamented  being  recalled  from 
the  happiness  he  was  about  to  enter  into ;  but  said  that  he  had 
only  two  days  to  spend  in  this  valley  of  tears,  durkig  which 
time  he  wished  everybody  that  would,  should,  come  and  listen 
to  what  he  had  to  tell  them.    His  before  sunken  eyes  now 


CASES  OF  TRANCE. 


125 


looked  bright,  his  face  had  the  bloom  of  youth,  and  he  dis- 
coursed so  eloquently,  that  the  minister  said  they  had  exchanged 
offices,  and  the  sick  man  had  become  his  teacher.  He  died  at 
the  time  he  had  foretold. 

The  most  frightful  cases  of  trance  recorded  are  those  in  which 
the  patient  retains  entire  consciousness,  although  utterly  unable 
to  exhibit  any  evidence  of  life ;  and  it  is  dreadful  to  think  how 
many  persons  may  have  been  actually  buried,  hearing  every 
nail  that  was  screwed  into  their  own  coffin,  and  as  perfectly 
aware  of  the  whole  ceremony  as  those  who  followed  them  to 
the  grave. 

Dr.  Binns  mentions  a  girl,  at  Canton,  who  lay  in  this  state, 
hearing  every  word  that  was  said  around  her,  but  utterly  un- 
able to  move  a  finger.  She  tried  to  cry  out,  but  could  not,  and 
supposed  that  she  was  really  dead.  The  horror  of  finding  her- 
self about  to  be  buried  at  length  caused  a  perspiration  to  appear 
on  her  skin,  and  she  finally  revived.  She  described  that  she 
felt  that  her  soul  had  no  power  to  act  upon  her  body,  and  that 
it  seemed  to  be  in  her  body  and  out  of  it,  at  the  same  time  I 

Now,  this  is  very  much  what  the  somnambulists  say :  their 
soul  is  out  of  the  body,  but  is  still  so  far  in  rapport  with  it,  that 
it  does  not  leave  it  entirely.  Probably  magnetism  would  be  the 
best  means  of  reviving  a  person  from  this  state. 

The  custom  of  burying  people  before  there  are  unmistaka- 
ble signs  of  death,  is  a  very  condemnable  one.    A  Mr.  M'G  

fell  into  a  trance,  some  few  years  since,  and  remained  insensible 
for  five  days,  his  mother  being  meanwhile  quite  shocked  that 
the  physician  would  not  allow  him  to  be  buried.  He  had  after- 
ward a  recurrence  of  the  malady,  which  continued  seven  days. 

A  Mr.  S  ,  who  had  been  some  time  out  of  the  country, 

died,  apparently,  two  days  after  his  return.  As  he  had  eaten 
of  a  pudding  which  his  stepmother  had  made  for  his  dinner 
with  her  own  hands,  people  took  into  their  heads  she  had 
poisoned  him  ;  and,  the  grave  being  opened  for  purposes  of 
investigation,  the  body  was  found  lying  on  its  face. 

One  of  the  most  frightful  cases  extant  is  that  of  Dr.  Walker, 
of  Dublin,  who  had  so  strong  a  presentiment  on  this  subject,  that 


126 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


he  had  actually  written  a  treatise  against  the  Irish  customs  of 
hasty  burial.  He  himself  subsequently  died,  as  was  believed, 
of  a  fever.  His  decease  took  place  in  the  night,  and  on  the 
following  day  he  was  interred.  At  this  time,  Mrs.  Bellamy,  the 
once-celebrated  actress,  was  in  Ireland ;  and  as  she  had  prom- 
ised him,  in  the  course  of  conversation,  that  she  would  take  care 
he  should  not  be  laid  in  the  earth  till  unequivocal  signs  of  dis- 
solution had  appeared,  she  no  sooner  heard  of  what  had  hap- 
pened than  she  took  measures  to  have  the  grave  reopened  ;  but 
it  was,  unfortunately,  too  late ;  Dr.  Walker  had  evidently  re- 
vived, and  had  turned  upon  his  side ;  but  life  was  now  quite 
extinct. 

The  case  related  by  Lady  Fanshawe,  of  her  mother,  is  very 
remarkable,  from  the  confirmation  furnished  by  the  event  of 
her  death.  "  My  mother,  being  sick  of  a  fever,"  says  Lady 
Fanshawe,  in  her  memoirs,  "  her  friends  and  servants  thought 
her  deceased,  and  she  lay  in  that  state  for  two  days  and  a  night ; 
but  Mr.  Winslow,  coming  to  comfort  my  father,  went  into  my 
mother's  room,  and,  looking  earnestly  in  her  face,  said,  1  She 
was  so  handsome,  and  looked  so  lovely,  that  he  could  not  think 
her  dead and,  suddenly  taking  a  lancet  out  of  his  pocket,  he 
cut  the  sole  of  her  foot,  which  bled.  Upon  this,  he  immediately 
caused  her  to  be  removed  to  the  bed  again,  and  to  be  rubbed, 
and  such  means  used  that  she  came  to  life,  and,  opening  her 
eyes,  saw  two  of  her  kinswomen  standing  by  her  (Lady  Knol- 
lys  and  Lady  Russell),  both  with  great  wide  sleeves,  as  the 
fashion  then  was  ;  and  she  said,  '  Did  you  not  promise  me  fif- 
teen years,  and  are  you  come  again  already  V  —  which  they, 
not  understanding,  bade  her  keep  her  spirits  quiet  in  that  great 
weakness  wherein  she  was  ;  but,  some  hours  after,  she  desired 
my  father  and  Dr.  Howlesworth  might  be  left  alone  with  her, 
to  whom  she  said  :  '  I  will  acquaint  you,  that,  during  my  trance, 
I  was  in  great,  grief,  but  in  a  place  I  could  neither  distinguish 
nor  describe ;  but  the  sense  of  leaving  my  girl,  who  is  dearer 
to  me  than  all  my  children,  remained  a  trouble  upon  my  spirits. 
Suddenly  I  saw  two  by  me,  clothed  in  long  white  garments, 
and  methought  I  fell  down  upon  my  face  in  the  dust,  and  they 


TRANCE. 


127 


asked  me  why  I  was  so  troubled  in  so  great  happiness.  I  re- 
plied, "  Oh,  let  me  have  the  same  grant  given  to  Hezekiah,  that 
1  may  live  fifteen  years  to  see  my  daughter  a  woman  !"  —  to 
which  they  answered,  "  It  is  done  !"  —  and  then  at  that  instant 
I  awoke  out  of  my  trance !'  And  Dr.  Howlesworth  did  affirm 
that  the  day  she  died  made  just  fifteen  years  from  that  time." 

I  have  met  with  a  somewhat  similar  case  to  this,  which  oc- 
curred to  the  mother  of  a  very  respectable  person  now  living 
in  Edinburgh.  She  having  been  ill,  was  supposed  to  be  dead, 
and  preparations  were  making  for  her  funeral,  when  one  of  her 
fingers  was  seen  to  move,  and  restoratives  being  applied,  she 
revived.  As  soon  as  she  could  speak,  she  said  she  had  been  at 
the  gates  of  heaven,  where  she  saw  some  going  in,  but  that 
they  told  her  she  was  not  ready.  Among  those  who  had  passed 
her,  and  been  admitted,  she  said  she  had  seen  Mr.  So-and-so, 
the  baker,  and  the  remarkable  thing  was,  that  during  the  time 
she  had  been  in  the  trance,  this  man  had  died. 

On  the  10th  of  January,  1717,  Mr.  John  Gardner,  a  minister, 
at  Elgin,  fell  into  a  trance,  and,  being  to  all  appearance  dead, 
he  was  put  into  a  coffin,  and  on  the  second  day  was  carried  to 
the  grave.  But,  fortunately,  a  noise  being  heard,  the  coffin  was 
opened,  and  he  was  found  alive  and  taken  home  again,  where, 
according  to  the  record,  "  he  related  many  strange  and  amazing 
things  which  he  had  seen  in  the  other  world." 

Not  to  mention  somnambules,  there  are  numerous  other  cases 
recorded  of  persons  who  have  said,  on  awaking  from  a  trance, 
that  they  had  been  in  the  other  world ;  though  frequently  the 
freed  spirit — supposing  that  to  be  the  interpretation  of  the  mys- 
tery—  seems  busied  with  the  affairs  of  the  ear£h,  and  brings 
tidings  from  distant  places,  as  in  the  case  of  the  American  above 
mentioned.  Perhaps,  in  these  latter  cases,  the  disunion  is  less 
complete.  Dr.  Werner  relates  of  his  somnambule,  that  it  was 
after  those  attacks  of  catalepsy,  in  which  her  body  had  lain  stiff' 
and  cold,  that  she  used  to  say  she  had  been  wandering  away 
through  other  spheres.  Where  the  catalepsy  is  spontaneous 
and  involuntary,  and  resembles  death  so  nearly  as  not  to  be 
distinguished  from  it,  we  may  naturally  conclude,  if  we  admit 


128  THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 

this  hypothesis  at  all,  that  the  seeing  of  the  spirit  would  be  clear 
in  proportion  to  its  disentanglement  from  the  flesh. 

I  have  spoken  above  of  dream  compelling  or  suggesting,  and 
T  have  heard  of  persons  who  have  a  power  of  directing  their 
own  dreams  to  any  particular  subject. 

This  faculty  may  be  in  some  degree  analogous  to  that  of  the 
American,  and  a  few  somnambulic  persons,  who  appear  to  carry 
the  recollections  of  one  state  into  the  other.  The  effects  pro- 
duced by  the  witch-potions  seem  to  have  been  somewhat  similar, 
inasmuch  as  they  dreamed  what  they  wished  or  expected  to 
dream.  Jung  Stilling  mentions  that  a  woman  gave  in  evidence, 
on  a  witch-trial,  that  having  visited  the  so-called  witch,  she  had 
found  her  concocting  a  potion  over  the  fire,  of  which  she  had 
advised  her  (the  visiter)  to  drink,  assuring  her  that  she  would 
then  accompany  her  to  the  Sabbath.  The  woman  said,  lest  she 
should  give  offence,  she  had  put  the  vessel  to  her  lips,  but  had 
not  drunk  of  it.  The  witch,  however,  swallowed  the  whole, 
and  immediately  afterward  sunk  down  upon  the  hearth  in  a 
profound  sleep,  where  she  had  left  her.  When  she  went  to 
see  her  on  the  following  day,  she  declared  she  had  been  to  the 
Brocken. 

Paolo  Minucci  relates  that  a  woman  accused  of  sorcery,  be- 
ing brought  before  a  certain  magistrate  at  Florence,  she  not 
only  confessed  her  guilt,  but  she  declared  that,  provided  they 
would  let  her  return  home  and  anoint  herself,  she  would  attend 
the  Sabbath  that  very  night.  The  magistrate,  a  man  more  en- 
lightened than  the  generality  of  his  contemporaries,  consented. 
The  woman  went  home,  used  her  unguent,  and  fell  immediately 
into  a  profound  sleep  ;  whereupon  they  tied  her  to  the  bed,  and 
tested  the  reality  of  the  sleep  by  burns,  blows,  and  pricking 
her  with  sharp  instruments.  When  she  awoke  on  the  follow- 
ing day,  she  related  that  she  had  attended  the  Sabbath. 

I  could  quote  several  similar  facts ;  and  Gassendi  actually 
endeavored  to  undeceive  some  peasants  who  believed  them- 
selves witches,  by  composing  an  ointment  that  produced  the 
same  effects  as  their  own  magical  applications. 

In  the  year  1545,  Andre  Laguna,  physician  to  Pope  Julius 


WITCH  POTIONS. 


121/ 


III.,  anointed  a  patient  of  his,  who  was  suffering  from  frenzy 
1  and  sleeplessness,  with  an  unguent  found  in  the  house  of  a  sor- 
cerer, who  had  been  arrested.  The  patient  slept  for  thirty-six 
hours  consecutively,  and  when,  with  much  difficulty,  she  was 
awakened,  she  complained  that  they  had  torn  her  from  the  most 
ravishing  delights  —  delights  which  seem  to  have  rivalled  the 
heaven  of  the  Mohammedan.  According  to  Llorente,  the 
women  who  were  dedicated  to  the  service  of  the  mother  of  the 
gods,  heard  continually  the  sounds  of  flutes  and  tambourines, 
beheld  the  joyous  dances  of  the  fauns  and  satyrs,  and  tasted  of 
intoxicating  pleasures,  doubtless  from  a  similar  cause. 

It  is  difficult  to  imagine  that  all  the  unfortunate  wretches  who 
suffered  death  at  the  stake  in  the  middle  ages,  for  having  at- 
tended the  unholy  assemblies  they  described,  had  no  faith  in 
their  own  stories ;  yet,  in  spite  of  the  unwearied  vigilance  of 
public  authorities  and  private  malignity,  no  such  assemblage 
was  ever  detected.  How,  then,  are  we  to  account  for  the  per- 
tinacity of  their  confessions,  but  by  supposing  them  the  victims 
of  some  extraordinary  delusion  1  In  a  paper  addressed  to  the 
Inquisition,  by  Llorente,  he  does  not  scruple  to  assert  that  the 
crimes  imputed  to  and  confessed  by  witches  have  most  fre- 
quently no  existence  but  in  their  dreams,  and  that  their  drean  s 
are  produced  by  the  drugs  with  which  they  anointed  themselves. 

The  recipes  for  these  compositions,  which  had  descended  tra- 
ditionally from  age  to  age,  have  been  lost  since  witchcraft  went 
out  of  fashion,  and  modern  science  has  no  time  to  investigate 
secrets  which  appear  to  be  more  curious  than  profitable ;  but 
in  the  profound  sleep  produced  by  these  applications,  it  is  not 
easy  to  say  what  phenomena  may  have  occurred  to  justify,  or, 
at  least,  account  for,  their  seli-accusations. 

6* 


J  30 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

WRAITHS. 

Sum  instances  as  that  of  Lady  Fanshawe,  and  other  similar 
ones,  certainly  seem  to  favor  the  hypothesis  that  the  spirit  is 
freed  from  the  body  when  the  latter  becomes  no  longer  a  fit 
habitation  for  it.  It  does  so  when  actual  death  supervenes,  and 
the  reason  of  its  departure  we  may  naturally  conclude  to  be, 
that  the  body  has  ceased  to  be  available  for  its  manifestations ; 
and  in  these  cases,  which  seem  so  nearly  allied  to  death,  that 
frequently  there  would  actually  be  no  revival  but  for  the  exer- 
tions used,  it  does  not  seem  very  difficult  to  conceive  that  this 
separation  may  take  place.  When  we  are  standing  by  a  death- 
bed, all  we  see  is  the  death  of  the  body  —  of  the  going  forth  of 
the  spirit  we  see  nothing  :  so,  in  cases  of  apparent  death,  it  may 
depart  aud  return,  while  we  are  aware  of  nothing  but  the  re- 
animation  of  the  organism.  Certain  it  is,  that  the  Scriptures 
countenance  this  view  of  the  case  in  several  instances ;  thus, 
Luke  says,  viii.  34  :  "  And  he  put  them  all  out,  and  took  her 
by  the  hand,  and  called,  saying,  '  Maid,  arise  !'  And  her  spirit 
came  again,  and  she  arose  straightway,"  &c,  &c. 

Dr.  Wigan  observes,  when  speaking  of  the  effects  of  tempo- 
rary pressure  on  the  brain,  that  the  mind  is  not  annihilated, 
because,  if  the  pressure  is  timely  removed,  it  is  restored,  though, 
if  continued  too  long,  the  body  will  be  resolved  into  its  primary 
elements  :  and  he  compares  the  human  organism  to  a  watch, 
which  we  can  either  stop  or  set  going  at  will  —  which  watch, 
he  says,  will  also  be  gradually  resolved  into  its  original  ele- 
ments by  chemical  action  ;  and  he  adds  that,  to  ask  where  the 
mind  is,  during  the  interruption,  is  like  asking  where  the  mo- 
tion of  the  watch  is.    I  think  a  wind-instrument  would  be  a 


WRAITHS. 


131 


better  simile,  for  the  motion  of  the  watch  is  purely  mechanical. 
It  requires  no  informing,  intelligent  spirit  to  breathe  into  its 
apertures,  and  make  it  the  vehicle  of  the  harshest  discords,  or 
of  the  most  eloquent  discourses.  "  The  divinely  mysterious 
essence,  which  we  call  the  soul,"  he  adds,  "  is  not,  then,  the 
mind,  from  which  it  must  be  carefully  distinguished,  if  we 
would  hope  to  make  any  progress  in  mental  philosophy.  Where 
the  soul  resides  during  the  suspension  of  the  mental  powers  by 
asphyxia,  I  know  not,  any  more  than  I  know  where  it  resided 
before  it  was  united  with  that  specific  compound  of  bones, 
muscles,  and  nerve." 

By  a  temporary  pressure  on  the  brain,  the  mind  is  certainly 
not  annihilated,  but  its  manifestations  by  means  of  the  brain 
are  suspended  —  the  source  of  these  manifestations  being  the 
soul,  or  anima,  in  which  dwells  the  life,  fitting  the  temple  for 
its  divine  inhabitant,  the  spirit.  The  connection  of  the  soul  and 
the  body  is  probably  a  much  more  intimate  one  than  that  of  the 
latter  with  the  spirit, — though  the  soul,  as  well  as  the  sjJfHt,  is 
immortal,  and  survives  when  the  body  dies.  Somnambulic 
persons  seem  to  intimate  that  the  soul  of  the  fleshly  body 
becomes  hereafter  the  body  of  the  spirit,  as  if  the  imago  or 
idolon  were  the  soul. 

Dr.  Wigan  and  indeed  psychologists  in  general  do  not  ap- 
pear to  recognise  the  old  distinction  between  the  pneuma,  or 
anima,  and  the  psyches  —  the  soul  and  the  spirit;  and,  indeed, 
the  Scriptures  occasionally  seem  to  use  the  terms  indifferently. 
But  still  there  are  passages  enough  which  mark  the  distinction  ; 
as  where  St.  Paul  speaks  of  a  "  living  soul  and  a  quickening 
spirit:"  1  Cor.  xv.  45; —  again,  1  Thess.  v.  23:  "I  pray  God 
your  whole  spirit,  and  soul,  and  body,"  &c. ;  —  and  also  Heb. 
iv.  12,  where  he  speaks  of  the  sword  of  God  "dividing  asun- 
der the  soul  and  spirit."  In  Genesis,  chap,  ii.,  we  are  told  that 
"man  became  a  living  soul;"  but  it  is  distinctly  said,  1  Cor. 
xii.,  that  the  gifts  of  prophecy,  the  discerning  of  spirits,  &c, 
&c,  belong  to  tlie  spirit.  Then,  with  regard  to  the  possibility 
of  the  spirit  absenting  itself  from  the  body,  St.  Paul  says,  in 
referring  to  his  own  vision  —  2  Cor.  xii.  —  "I  knew  a  man  in 


132 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


Christ,  about  fourteen  years  ago  (whether  in  the  body,  I  can 
not  tell ;  or  out  of  the  body,  I  can  not  tell :  God  knoweth) ; 
such  a  one  caught  up  to  the  third  heaven  :"  and  we  are  told, 
also,  that  to  be  M  absent  from  the  body  is  to  be  present  with 
the  Lord  and  that  when  we  are  "  at  home  in  the  body  we 
are  absent  from  the  Lord."  We  are  told,  also,  "  the  spirit 
returns  to  God,  who  gave  it;"  but  it  depends  on  ourselves 
whether  or  not  our  souls  shall  perish.  We  must  suppose,  hovv- 
everr  that  even  in  the  worst  cases,  some  remnant  of  this  divine 
spirit  remains  with  the  soul  as  long  as  the  latter  is  not  utterly 
perverted  and  rendered  incapable  of  salvation. 

St.  John  also  says,  that  when  lie  prophesied,  he  was  in  the 
spirit;  but  it  was  the  "souls  of  the  slain"  that  he  saw,  and 
that  "cried  with  a  loud  voice,"  &c,  &c;  souls,  here,  being 
probably  used  in  the  sense  of  individuals,  —  as  we  say,  so  many 
"  souls  perished  by  shipwreck,"  &c. 

In  the  Revue  de  Paris,  29th  July,  1838,  it  is  related  that  a 
ch\\d*baw  the  soul  of  a  woman,  who  was  lying  insensible  in  a 
magnetic  crisis  in  which  death  nearly  ensued,  depart  out  of 
her ;  and  I  find  recorded  in  another  work  that  a  somnambule, 
who  was  brought  to  give  advice  to  a  patient,  said  :  "  It  is  too 
late  —  her  soul  is  leaving  her  :  I  see  the  vital  flame  quitting  her 
brain." 

From  some  of  the  cases  I  have  above  related,  we  are  led  to 
the  conclusion  that  in  certain  conditions  of  the  body,  the  spirit, 
in  a  manner  unknown  to  us,  resumes  a  portion  of  its  freedom, 
and  is  enabled  to  exercise  more  or  less  of  its  inherent  proper- 
ties. It  is  somewhat  released  from  those  inexorable  conditions 
of  time  and  space  which  bound  and  limit  its  powers,  while  in 
close  connection  with  matter,  and  it  communes  with'  other 
spirits  who  are  also  liberated.  How  far  this  liberation  (if  such 
it  be),  or  reintegration  of  natural  attributes,  may  take  place  in 
ordinary  sleep,  we  can  only  conclude  from  examples.  In  pro- 
phetic dreams,  and  in  those  instances  of  information  apparently 
received  from  the  dead,  this  condition  seems  to  occur ;  as  also 
in  such  cases  as  that  of  the  gentleman  mentioned  in  a  former 
chapter,  who  has  several  times  been  conscious,  on  awaking, 


WRAITHS. 


13.3 


that  he  had  been  conversing  with  some  one,  whom  he  has  been 
subsequently  startled  to  hear  had  died  at  that  period,  and  this 
is  a  man  apparently  in  excellent  health,  endowed,  with  a  vigor- 
ous understanding,  and  immersed  in  active  business. 

In  the  story  of  the  American,  quoted  in  a  former  chapter 
from  Jung  Stilling,  there  was  one  point  which  I  forebore  to 
comment  on  at  the  moment,  but  to  which  I  must  now  revert : 
this  is  the  assertion  that  the  voyager  had  seen  the  man,  and 
even  conversed  with  him,  in  the  coffeehouse  in  London  whence 
the  desired  intelligence  was  brought.  Now,  this  single  case, 
standing  alone,  would  amount  to  nothing,  although  Jung  Stil- 
ling, who  was  one  of  the  most  conscientious  of  men,  declares 
himself  to  have  been  quite  satisfied  with  the  authority  on  which 
he  relates  it;  but,  strange  to  say  —  for  undoubtedly  the  thing  is 
very  strange  —  there  are  numerous  similar  instances  recorded  ; 
and  it  seems  to  have  been  believed  in  all  ages  of  the  world,  that 
people  were  sometimes  seen  where  bodily  they  were  not  — 
seen,  not  by  sleepers  alone,  but  by  persons  in  a  perfect  state  of 
vigilance ;  and  that  this  phenomenon,  though  more  frequently 
occurring  at  the  moment  that  the  individual  seen  is  at  the  point 
of  death,  does  occasionally  occur  at  indefinite  periods  anterior 
to  the  catastrophe,  and  sometimes  where  no  such  catastrophe  is 
impending.  In  some  of  these  cases,  an  earnest  desire  seems  to 
be  the  cause  of  the  phenomenon.  It  is  not  very  long  since  a 
very  estimable  lady,  who  was  dying  in  the  Mediterranean, 
expressed  herself  perfectly  ready  to  meet  death,  if  she  coulc 
but  once  more  behold  her  children,  who  were  in  England. 
She  soon  afterward  fell  into  a  comatose  state,  and  the  persons 
surrounding  her  were  doubtful  whether  she  had  not  already 
breathed  her  last  ;  at  all  events,  they  did  not  expect  her  to 
revive.  She  did  so,  however,  and  now  cheerfully  announced 
that,  having  seen  her  children,  she  was  ready  to  depart.  Du- 
ring the  interval  that  she  lay  in  this  state,  her  family  saw  her 
in  England,  and  were  thus  aware  of  her  death  before  the  intel- 
ligence reached  them.  As  it  is  a  subject,  I  understand,  they 
are  unwilling  to  speak  of,  I  do  not  know  precisely  under  what 
circumstances  she  was  seen;  —  but  this  is  an  exactly  analogous 


134 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


case  to  that  already  recorded  of  Maria  Goffe,  of  Rochester, 
who,  when  dying  away  from  home,  expressed  precisely  the 
same  feelings.  She  said  she  could  not  die  happy  till  she  had 
seen  her  children.  By-and-by  she  fell  into  a  state  of  coma, 
which  left  them  uncertain  whether  she  was  dead  or  alive.  Her 
eyes  were  open  and  fixed,  her  jaw  fallen,  and  there  was  no 
perceptible  respiration.  When  she  revived,  she  told  her 
mother,  who  attended  her,  that  she  had  been  home  and  seen 
her  children  ;  which  the  other  said. was  impossible,  since  she 
had  been  lying  there  in  bed  the  whole  time.  "  Yes,"  replied 
the  dying  woman,  "  but  I  was  there  in  my  sleep."  A  widow 
woman,  called  Alexander,  who  had  the  care  of  these  children, 
declared  herself  ready  to  take  oath  upon  the  sacrament,  that, 
during  this  period,  she  had  seen  the  form  of  Maria  Goffe  come 
out  of  the  room  where  the  oldest  child  slept,  and  approach  the 
bed  where  she  herself  lay  with  the  younger  beside  her.  The 
figure  had  stood  there  nearly  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  as  far  as  she 
she  could  judge  ;  and  she  remarked  that  the  eyes  and  the  mouth 
moved,  though  she  heard  no  sound.  She  declared  herself  to 
have  been  perfectly  awake,  and  that,  as  it  was  the  longest  night 
in  the  year,  it  was  quite  light.  She  sat  .  up  in  bed,  and  while 
she  was  looking  on  the  figure  the  clock  on  the  bridge  struck 
two.  She  then  adjured  the  form  in  the  name  of  God,  where- 
upon it  moved.  She  immediately  arose  and  followed  it,  but 
could  not  tell  what  had  become  of  it.  She  then  became 
alarmed,  and  throwing  on  her  clothes,  went  out  and  walked  on 
the  quay,  returning  to  the  house  ever  and  anon  to  look  at  the 
children.  At  five  o'clock  she  knocked  at  a  neighbor's  door, 
but  they  would  not  let  her  in.  At  six  she  knocked  again  and 
was  then  admitted,  and  related  to  them  what  she  had  seen, 
which  they,  of  course,  endeavored  to  persuade  her  was  a  dream 
or  an  illusion.  She  declared  herself,  however,  to  have  been 
perfectly  awake,  and  said  that  if  she  had  ever  seen  Maria  GofFe 
in  her  life  she  had  seen  her  that  night. 

The  following  story  has  been  currently  related  in  Rome,  and 
is  already  in  print.  I  take  it  from  a  German  work,  and  I  do 
not  know  how  far  its  authenticity  can  be  established.    It  is  to 


WRAITHS. 


135 


the  effect  that  two  friends  having  agreed  to  attend  confession 
together,  one  of  them  went  at  the  appointed  time  to  the  Abbate 
B  ,  and  made  his  confession  ;  after  which  the  priest  com- 
menced the  usual  admonition,  in  the  midst  of  which  he  sudden- 
ly ceased  speaking.  After  waiting  a  short  time,  the  penitent 
stepped  forward  and  perceived  him  lying  in  the  confessional  in 
a  state  of  insensibility.  Aid  was  summoned  and  means  used  to 
restore  him,  which  were  for  some  time  ineffectual ;  at  length, 
when  he  opened  his  eyes,  he  bade  the  penitent  recite  a  prayer 
for  his  friend,  who  had  just  expired.  This  proved  to  be  the 
case,  on  inquiry ;  and  when  the  young  man,  who  had  naturally 
hastened  to  his  friend's  house,  expressed  a  hope  that  he  had  not 
died  without  the  last  offices  of  the  church,  he  was  told  in  amaze- 
ment, that  the  Abbate  B  had  arrived  just  as  he  was  in  ex- 
tremis, and  had  remained  with  him  till  he  died. 

These  appearances  seem  to  have  taken  place  when  the  cor- 
poreal condition  of  the  person  seen  elsewhere,  permits  us  to 
conceive  the '  possibility  of  the  spirit's  having  withdrawn  from 
the  body  ;  but  the  question  then  naturally  arises,  what  is  it  that 
was  seen ;  and  I  confess,  that  of  all  the  difficulties  that  surround 
the  subject,  I  have  undertaken  to  treat  of,  this  seems  to  me  the 
greatest ;  for  we  can  not  suppose  that  a  spirit  can  be  visible  to 
the  human  eye,  and  both  in  the  above  instances  and  several 
others  I  have  to  narrate,  there  is  nothing  that  can  lead  us  to  the 
conclusion,  that  the  persons  who  saw  the  wraith  or  double, 
were  in  any  other  than  a  normal  state ;  the  figure,  in  short, 
seems  to  have  been  perceived  through  their  external  organs  of 
sense.  Before  I  discuss  this  question,  however,  any  further,  I 
will  relate  some  instances  of  a  similar  kind,  only  with  this  dif- 
ference, that  the  wraith  appearing  as  nearly  as  could  be  ascer- 
tained at  the  moment  of  death,  it  remains  uncertain  whether  it 
was  seen  before  or  after  the  dissolution  had  taken  place.  As 
in  both  these  cases  above  related  and  those  that  follow,  the  ma- 
terial bocly  was  visible  in  one  place,  while  the  wraith  was  vis- 
'ble  in  another,  they  appear  to  be  strictly  analogous  ;  espe- 
cially, as  in  both  class  of  examples,  the -body  itself  was  either 
dead  or  in  a  state  that  closely  resembled  death. 


136 


THE  NIGHT- SIDE  OF 


NATURE. 


Instances  of  people  being  seen  at  a  distance  from  the  spot  on 
which  they  are  dying,  are  so  numerous,  that  in  this  department 
I  have  positively  an  embarras  de  ricJiesse,  and  find  it  difficult 
to  make  a  selection ;  more  especially  as  there  is  in  each  case 
little  to  relate,  the  whole  phenomenon  being  comprised  in  the 
fact  of  the  form  being  observed  and  the  chief  variations  con- 
sisting in  this,  that  the  seer,  or  seers,  frequently  entertain  no 
suspicion  that  what  they  have  seen  is  any  other  than  a  form  of 
flesh  and  blood  ;  while  on  other  occasions  the  assurance  that 
the  person  is  far  away,  or  some  peculiarity  connected  with  the 
appearance  itself,  produces  the  immediate  conviction  that  the 
shape  is  not  corporeal. 

Mrs.  K  ,  the  sister  of  Provost  B  ,  of  Aberdeen,  was 

sitting  one  day  with  her  husband,  Dr.  K  ,  in  the  parlor  of 

the  manse,  when  she  suddenly  said,  "  Oh  !  there's  my  brother 
come  !  he  has  just  passed  the  window,"  and,  followed  by  her 
husband,  she  hastened  to  the  door  to  meet  the  visiter.  He  was 
however  not  there.  "  He  is  gone  round  to  the  back  door,"  said 
she ;  and  thither  they  went ;  but  neither  was  he  there,  nor  had 

the  servants  seen  anything  of  him.    Dr.  K  said  she  must 

be  mistaken,  but  she  laughed  at  the  idea ;  her  brother  had 
passed  the  window  and  looked  in  ;  he  must  have  gone  some- 
where, and  would  doubtless  be  back  directly.  But  he  came 
not ;  and  the  intelligence  shortly  arrived  from  St.  Andrew's,  that 
at  that  precise  time,  as  nearly  as  they  could  compare  circum- 
stances, he  had  died  quite  suddenly  at  his  own  place  of  resi- 
dence. I  have  heard  this  story  from  connections  of  the  family, 
and  also  from  an  eminent  professor  of  Glasgow,  who  told  me 

that  he  had  once  asked  Dr.  K  ,  whether  he  believed  in  these 

appearances.    "  I  can  not  choose  but  believe,"  returned  Dr. 

K  ,  and  then  he  accounted  for  his  conviction  by  narrating 

the  above  particulars. 

Lord  and  Lady  M  were  residing  on  their  estate  in  Ire- 
land :  Lord  M  had  gone  out  shooting  in  the  morning,  and 

was  not  expected  to  return  till  toward  dinner-time.  In  the 
course  of  the  afternoon,  Lady  M  and  a  friend  were  walk- 
ing on  the  terrace  that  forms  a  promenade  in  front  of  the  cas- 


WRAITHS. 


137 


tie,  when  she  said,  "  Oh,  there  is  M  returning!"  where- 
upon she  called  to  him  to  join  them.  He,  however,  took  no 
notice,  but  walked  on  before  them,  till  they  saw  him  enter  the 
house,  whither  they  followed  him;  —  but  he  was  not  to  be 
found  :  and  before  they  had  recovered  their  surprise  at  his  sud- 
den disappearance,  he  was  brought  home  dead,  having  been 
killed  by  his  own  gun.  It  is  a  curious  fact,  in  this  case,  that 
while  the  ladies  were  walking  behind  the  figure  on  the  terrace, 
Lady  M  called  the  attention  of  her  companion  to  the  shoot- 
ing-jacket, observing  that  it  was  a  convenient  one,  and  that  she 
had  the  credit  of  having  contrived  it  for  him  herself. 

A  person  in  Edinburgh,  busied  about  her  daily  work,  saw  a 
woman  enter  her  house,  with  whom  she  was  on  such  ill  terms 
that  she  could  not  but  be  surprised  at  the  visit ;  but  while  she 
was  expecting  an  explanation,  and  under  the  influence  of  her 
resentment  avoiding  to  look  at  her,  she  found  she  was  gone. 
She  remained  quite  unable  to  account  for  the  visit,  and,  as  she 
said,  "  was  wondering  what  had  brought  her  there,"  when  she 
heard  that  the  woman  had  expired  at  that  precise  time. 

Madame  O  B  was  engaged  to  marry  an  officer  who 

was  with  his  regiment  in  India ;  and,  wishing  to  live  in  privacy 
till  the  union  took  place,  she  retired  to  the  country  and  boarded 
with  some  ladies  of  her  acquaintance,  awaiting  his  return.  She 
at  length  heard  that  he  had  obtained  an  appointment,  which,  by 
improving  his  prospects,  had  removed  some  difficulties  out  of 
the  way  of  the  marriage,  and  that  he  was  immediately  coming 
home.  A  short  time  after  the  arrival  of  this  intelligence,  this 
lady,  and  one  of  those  with  whom  she  was  residing,  were  walk- 
ing over  a  bridge,  when  the  friend  said,  alluding  to  an  officer 
she  saw  on  the  other  side  of  the  way,  "  What  an  extraordinary 
expression  of  face  I"    But,  without  pausing  to  answer,  Madame 

O  B          darted  across  the  road  to  meet  the  stranger — 

but  he  was,  gone  :  where  1  they  could  not  conceive.  They  ran 
to  the  toll-keepers  at  the  ends  of  the  bridge,  to  inquire  if  they 
had  observed  such  a  person,  but  they  had  not.  Alarmed  and 
perplexed  —  for  it  was  her  intended  husband  that  she  had 
seen  —  Madame  O  B  returned  home  ;  and  in  due  time 


138  THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 

the  packet  which  should  have  brought  himself,  brought  the  sa 
tidings  of  his  unexpected  death. 

Madame  O  B          never  recovered  the  shock,  and  die 

herself  of  a  broken  heart  not  long  afterward. 

Mr.  H  ,  an  eminent  artist,  was  walking  arm  in  arm  with 

a  friend  in  Edinburgh,  when  he  suddenly  left  him,  saying, 
"  Oh,  there's  my  brother !"  He  had  seen  him  with  the  most 
entire  distinctness ;  but  was  confounded  by  losing  sight  of  him, 
without  being  able  to  ascertain  whither  he  had  vanished.  News 
came,  ere  long,  that  at  that  precise  period  his  brother  had  died. 

Mrs.  T  ,  sitting  in  her  drawing-room,  saw  her  nephew, 

then  at  Cambridge,  pass  across  the  adjoining  room.  She 
started  up  to  meet  him,  and,  not  finding  him,  summoned  the 
servants  to  ask  where  he  was.  They,  however,  had  not  seen 
him,  and  declared  he  could  not  be  there;  while  she  as  posi- 
tively declared  he  was.  The  young  man  had  died  at  Cambridge 
quite  unexpectedly. 

A  Scotch  minister  went  to  visit  a  friend  who  was  dangerously 
ill.  After  sitting  with  the  invalid  for  some  time,  he  left  him  to 
take  some  rest,  and  went  below.  He  had  been  reading  in  the 
library  some  little  time,  when,  on  looking  up,  he  saw  the  sick 
man  standing  at  the  door.  "  God  bless  me!"  he  cried,  start- 
ing up,  "  how  can  you  be  so  imprudent  ?"  The  figure  disap- 
peared ;  and,  hastening  up  stairs,  he  found  his  friend  had 
expired. 

Three  young  men  at  Cambridge  had  been  out  hunting,  and 
afterward  dined  together  in  the  apartments  of  one  of  them. 
After  dinner,  two  of  the  party,  fatigued  with  their  morning's 

exercise,  fell  asleep,  while  the  third,  a  Mr.  M  ,  remained 

awake.  Presently  the  door  opened,  and  a  gentleman  entered 
and  placed  himself  behind  the  sleeping  owner  of  the  rooms, 
and,  after  standing  there  a  minute,  proeeeded  to  the  gyp- 
room —  a  small  inner  chamber,  from  which  there  was  no  egress. 
Mr.  M  waited  a  little  while,  expecting  the  stranger  would 
come  out  again  ;  but,  as  he  did  not,  he  awoke  his  host,  saying, 
u  There's  somebody  gone  into  your  room :  I  don't  know  who 
it  can  be." 


WRAITHS. 


139 


The  young  man  rose  and  looked  into  the  gyp-room ;  but, 

there  being  nobody  there,  he  naturally  accused  Mr.  M  of 

dreaming ;  but  the  other  assured  him  he  had  not  been  asleep. 
He  then  described  the  stranger — an  elderly  man,  &c,  dressed 
like  a  country  squire,  with  gaiters  on,  &c.  "  Why  that's  my 
father,"  said  the  host,  and  he  immediately  made  inquiry,  think- 
ing it  possible  the  old  gentleman  had  slipped  out  unobserved 

by  Mr.  M  .    He  was  not,  however,  to  be  heard  of ;  and  the 

post  shortly  brought  a  letter  announcing  that  he  had  died  at 
the  time  he  had  been  seen  in  his  son's  chamber  at  Cambridge. 

Mr.  C  F  and  some  young  ladies,  not  long  ago,  were 

standing  together  looking  in  at  a  shop  window  at  Brighton, — 
when  he  suddenly  darted  across  the  way,  and  they  saw  him 
hurrying  along  the  street,  apparently  in  pursuit  of  somebody. 
After  waiting  a  little  while,  as  he  did  not  return,  they  went 
home  without  him ;  and,  when  he  was  come,  they  of  course 
arraigned  him  for  his  want  of  gallantry. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  he ;  "  but  I  saw  an  acquaintance 
of  mine  that  owes  me  money,  and  I  wanted  to  get  hold  of  him." 

"  And  did  you  1"  inquired  the  ladies. 

"  No,"  returned  he ;  "  I  kept  sight  of  him  some  time ;  but 
I  suddenly  missed  him  —  I  can't  think  how." 

No  more  was  thought  of  the  matter ;  but,  by  the  next  morn-  * 

ing's  post,  Mr.  C  F  received  a  letter  enclosing  a  draft, 

from  the  father  of  the  young  man  he  had  seen,  saying  that  his 
son  had  just  expired,  and  that  one  of  his  last  requests  had 

been  that  he  would  pay  Mr.  C  F          the  money  that  he 

owed  him. 

Two  young  ladies,  staying  at  the  Queen's  Ferry,  arose  one 
morning  early  to  bathe  ;  as  they  descended  the  stairs,  they  each 
exclaimed  :  "  There's  my  uncle  !"  They  had  seen  him  stand- 
ing by  the  clock.    He  died  at  that  time. 

Very  lately,  a  gentleman  living  in  Edinburgh,  while  sitting 
with  his  wife,  suddenly  arose  from  his  seat  and  advanced  tow- 
ard the  door  with  his  hand  extended,  as  if  about  to  welcome  a 
visiter.  On  his  wife's  inquiring  what  he  was  about,  he  answered 
that  he  had  seen  so-and-so  enter  the  room.     She  had  seen 


140 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


nobody.  A  day  or  two  afterward,  the  post  brought  a  letter 
announcing  the  death  of  the  person  seen. 

A  regiment,  not  very  long  since,  stationed  at  New  Orleans, 
had  a  temporary  mess-room  erected,  at  one  end  of  which  was 
a  door  for  the  officers,  and  at  the  other,  a  door  and  a  space 
railed  off  for  the  messman.  One  day,  two  of  the  officers  were 
playing  at  chess,  or  draughts,  one  sitting  with  his  face  toward 
the  centre  of  the  room,  the  other  with  his  back  to  it.  "  Bless 
me  !  why,  surely  that  is  your  brother  !"  exclaimed  the  former 
to  the  latter,  who  looked  eagerly  round,  his  brother  being  then, 
as  he  believed,  in  England.  By  this  time  the  figure,  having 
passed  the  spot  where  the  officers  were  sitting,  presented  only 
his  back  to  them.  "  No,"  replied  the  second,  "  that  is  not  my 
brother's  regiment ;  that's  the  uniform  of  the  rifle-brigade.  By 
heavens !  it  is  my  brother,  though,"  he  added,  starting  up  and 
eagerly  pursuing  the  stranger,  who  at  that  moment  turned  his 
head  and  looked  at  him,  and  then,  somehow,  strangely  disap- 
peared among  the  people  standing  at  the  messman's  end  of  the 
room.  Supposing  he  had  gone  out  that  way,  the  brother  pur- 
sued him,  but  he  was  not  to  be  found ;  neither  had  the  mess- 
man,  nor  anybody  there,  observed  him.  The  young  man  died 
at  that  time  in  England,  having  just  exchanged  into  the  rifle- 
brigade. 

I  could  fill  pages  with  similar  instances,  not  to  mention  those 
recorded  in  other  collections  and  in  history.  The  case  of  Lord 
Balcarres  is  perhaps  worth  alluding  to,  from  its  being  so  per- 
fectly well  established.  Nobody  has  ever  disputed  the  truth  of 
it,  only  they  get  out  of  the  difficulty  by  saying  that  it  was  a 
spectral  illusion  !  Lord  Balcarres  was  in  confinement  in  the 
castle  of  Edinburgh,  under  suspicion  of  Jacobitism,  when  one 
morning,  while  lying  in  bed,  the  curtains  were  drawn  aside  by 
his  friend,  Viscount  Dundee,  who  looked  upon  him  steadfastly, 
leaned  for  some  time  on  the  mantel-piece,  and  then  walked  out 
of  the  room.  Lord  Balcarres,  not  supposing  that  what  he  saw 
was  a  spectre,  called  to  Dundee  to  come  back  and  speak  to  him, 
but  he  was  gone ;  and  shortly  afterward  the  news  came  that  he 
had  fallen  about  that  same  hour  at  Killicranky. 


WRAITHS.  141 

Finally,  I  have  met  with  three  instances  of  persons  who  are 
so  much  the  subjects  of  this  phenomenon,  that  they  see  the 
wraiths  of  most  people  that  die  belonging  to  them,  and  fre- 
quently of  those  who  are  merely  acquaintance.  They  see  the 
person  as  if  he  were  alive,  and  unless  they  know  him  positively 
to  be  elsewhere,  they  have  no  suspicion  but  that  it  is  himself,  in 
the  flesh,  that  is  before  them,  till  the  sudden  disappearance  of 
the  figure  brings  the  conviction.    Sometimes,  as  in  the  case  of 

Mr.  C  F  ,  above  alluded  to,  no  suspicion  arises  till  the 

news  of  the  death  arrives ;  and  they  mention,  without  reserve, 
that  they  have  met  so  and  so,  but  he  did  not  stop  to  speak,  and 
so  forth. 

On  other  occasions,  however,  the  circumstances  of  the  appear- 
ance are  such  that  the  seer  is  instantly  aware  of  its  nature.  In 
the  first  place,  the  time  and  locality  may  produce  the  conviction. 

Mrs.  J  wakes  her  husband  in  the  night,  and  tells  him  she 

has  just  seen  her  father  pass  through  the  room  —  she  being  in 
the  West  Indies  and  her  father  in  England.    He  died  that 

night.    Lord  T  being  at  sea,  on  his  way  to  Calcutta,  saw 

his  wife  enter  his  cabin. 

Mrs.  Mac  ,  of  Skye,  went  from  Lynedale,  where  she  resi- 
ded, to  pay  a  visit  in  Perthshire.  During  her  absence  there 
was  a  ball  given  at  Lynedale,  and  when  it  was  over,  three  young 
ladies,  two  of* them  her  daughters,  assembled  in  their  bedroom 
to  talk  over  the  evening's  amusement.  Suddenly,  one  of  them 
cried,  "  O  God !  my  mother."  They  all  saw  her  pass  across 
the  room  toward  a  chest  of  drawers,  where  she  vanished.  They 
immediately  told  their  friends  what  they  had  seen,  and  after- 
ward learned  that  the  lady  died  that  night. 

Lord  M  being  from  home,  saw  Lady  M  ,  whom  he 

had  left  two  days  before,  perfectly  well,  standing  at  the  foot  of 
his  bed  ;  aware  of  the  nature  of  the  appearance,  but  wishing  to 
satisfy  himself  that  it  was  not  a  mere  spectral  illusion,  he  called 
his  servant,  who  slept  in  the  dressing-room,  and  said,  "  John, 

who  's  that1?"   "  It 's  my  lady!"  replied  the  man.    Lady  M  

had  been  seized  with  inflammation,  and  died  after  a  few  hours' 
illness.    This  circumstance  awakened  so  much  interest  at  the 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


time,  that,  as  I  am  informed  by  one  of  the  family,  George  th 
Third  was  not  satisfied  without  hearing  the  particulars  from 
Lord  M  and  from  the  servant  also. 

But,  besides  time  and  locality,  there  are  very  frequently  other 
circumstances  accompanying  the  appearance,  which  not  only 
sliow  the  form  to  be  spectral,  but  also  make  known  to  the  seer 
the  nature  of  the  death  that  has  taken  place. 

A  lady,  with  whose  family  I  am  acquainted,  had  a  son  abroad 
One  night  she  was  lying  in  bed,  with  a  door  open  which  led  into 
an  adjoining  room,  where  there  was  a  fire.  She  had  not  been 
asleep,  when  she  saw  her  son  cross  this  adjoining  room  and 
approach  the  fire,  over  which  he  leaned,  as  if  very  cold.  She 
saw  that  he  was  shivering  and  dripping  wet.    She  immediately 

exclaimed,  "That's  my  G  !"    The  figure  turned  its  face 

round,  looked  at  her  sadly,  and  disappeared.  That  same  nigh 
the  young  man  was  drowned. 

Mr.  P  ,  the  American  manager,  in  one  of  his  voyages  to 

England,  being  in  bed  one  night,  between  sleeping  and  waking, 
was  disturbed  by  somebody  coming  into  his  cabin,  dripping  with 
water.  He  concluded  that  the  person  had  fallen  overboard 
and  asked  him  why  he  came  there  to  disturb  him,  when  there 
were  plenty  of  other  places  for  him  to  go  to.    The  man  mut 

tered  something  indistinctly,  and  Mr.  P  then  perceived  tha 

it  was  his  own  brother.    This  roused  him  completely,  and  feel 
ing  quite  certain  that  somebody  had  been  there,  he  got  out  of 
bed  to  feel  if  the  carpet  was  wet  on  the  spot  where  his  brother 
stood.    It  was  not,  however  ;  and  when  he  questioned  his  ship 
mates,  the  following  morning,  they  assured  him  that  nobody 
had  been  overboard,  nor  had  anybody  been  in  his  cabin.  Upon 
this,  he  noted  down  the  date  and  the  particulars  of  the  event, 
and,  on  his  arrival  at  Liverpool,  sent  the  paper  sealed  to  a  frien 
in  London,  desiring  it  might  not  be  opened  till  he  wrote  again 
The  Indian  post,  in  due  time,  brought  the  intelligence  that  o 
that  night  Mr.  P  's  brother  was  drowned. 

A  similar  case  to  this  is  that  of  Captain  Kidd,  which  Lord 
Byron  used  to  say  he  heard  from  the  captain  himself.  He  was 
one  night  awakened  in  his  hammock,  by  feeling  somethin 


WRAITHS. 


143 


heavy  lying  upon  him.  He  opened  his  eyes,  and  saw,  or  thought 
he  saw,  by  the  indistinct  light  in  the  cabin,  his  brother,  in  uni- 
form, lying  across  the  bed.  Concluding  that  this  was  only  an 
illusion  arising  out  of  some  foregone  dream,  he  closed  his  eyes 
again  to  sleep ;  but  again  he  felt  the  weight,  and  there  was  the 
form  still  lying  across  the  bed.  He  now  stretched  out  his  hand, 
and  felt  the  uniform,  which  was  quite  wet.  Alarmed,  he  called 
out  for  somebody  to  come  to  him  ;  and,  as  one  of  the  officers 
entered,  the  figure  disappeared.  He  afterward  learned  that 
his  brother  was  drowned  on  that  night  in  the  Indian  ocean. 

Ben  Jonson  told  Drummond,  of  Hawthornden,  that,  being  at 
Sir  Robert  Cotton's  house,  in  the  country,  with  old  Cambden, 
he  saw,  in  a  vision,  his  eldest  son,  then  a  child  at  London,  ap- 
pear to  him  with  a  mark  of  a  bloody  cross  on  his  forehead ;  at 
which,  amazed,  he  prayed  to  God ;  and,  in  the  morning,  men- 
tioned the  circumstance  to  Mr.  Cambden,  who  persuaded  him 
it  was  fancy.  In  the  meantime,  came  letters  announcing  that 
the  boy  had  died  of  the  plague.  The  custom  of  indicating  an 
infected  house  by  a  red  cross  is  here  suggested,  the  cross  appa- 
rently symbolizing  the  manner  of  the  death. 

Mr.  S  C  ,  a  gentleman  of  fortune,  had  a  son  in  India. 

One  fine,  calm  summer's  morning,  in  the  year  1780,  he  and  his 
wife  were  sitting  at  breakfast,  when  she  arose  and  went  to  the 
window ;  upon  which,  turning  his  eyes  in  the  same  direction, 
he  started  up  and  followed  her,  saying,  "  My  dear,  do  you  see 
that]"  —  "Surely,"  she  replied,  "it  is  our  son.  Let  us  go  to 
him !"  As  she  was  very  much  agitated,  however,  he  begged 
her  to  sit  down  and  recover  herself;  and  when  they  looked 
again,  the  figure  was  gone.  The  appearance  was  that  of  their 
son,  precisely  as  they  had  last  seen  him.  They  .took  note  of 
the  hour,  and  afterward  learned  that  he  had  died  in  India  at 
fcthat  period. 

A  lady,  with  whose  family  I  am  acquainted,  was  sitting  with 
her  son,  named  Andrew,  when  she  suddenly  exclaimed  that  she 
had  seen  him  pass  the  window,  in  a  white  mantle.  As  the  win- 
dow was  high  from  the  ground,  and  overhung  a  precipice,  no 
one  could  have  passed ;  else,  she  said,  "  Had  there  been  a  path, 


144 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


and  he  not  beside  her  at  the  moment,  she  should  have  though 
he  had  walked  by  on  stilts."    Three  days  afterward,  Andre 
was  seized  with  a  fever  which  he  had  caught  from  visiting  som 
sick  neighbors,  and  expired  after  a  short  illness. 

In  1807,  when  several  people  were  killed  in  consequence  of 
a  false  alarm  of  fire,  at  Sadler's  Wells,  a  woman  named  Price 
in  giving  her  evidence  at  the  inquest,  said  that  her  little  girl  ha 
gone  into  the  kitchen  about  half-past  ten  o'clock,  and  was  sur 
prised  to  see  her  brother  there,  whom  she  supposed  to  be  at 
the  theatre.    She  spoke  to  him,  whereupon  he  disappeared 
The  child  immediately  told  her  mother,  who,  alarmed,  set  o 
to  the  theatre,  and  found  the  boy  dead. 

In  the  year  1813,  a  young  lady  in  Berlin,  whose  intende 
husband  was  with  the  army  at  Dusseldorf,  heard  some  on 
knock  at  the  door  of  her  chamber,  and  her  lover  entered  in 
white  neglige,  stained  with  blood.    Thinking  that  this  visio 
proceeded  from  some  disorder  in  herself,  she  arose  and  quitted 
the  room,  to  call  a  servant ;  who  not  being  at  hand,  she  returned 
and  found  the  figure  there  still.  She  now  became  much  alarmed 
and  having  mentioned  the  circumstance  to  her  father,  inquiries 
were  made  of  some  prisoners  that  were  marching  through  th 
town,  and  it  was  ascertained  that  the  young  man  had  been 
wounded,  and  carried  to  the  house  of  Dr.  Ehrlick,  in  Leipsic 
with  great  hopes  of  recovery.    It  afterward  proved,  however, 
that  he  had  died  at  that  period,  and  that  his  last  thoughts  wer 
with  her.    This  lady  earnestly  wished  and  prayed  for  another 
such  visit,  but  she  never  saw  him  again. 

In  the  same  year,  a  woman  in  Bavaria,  who  had  a  brother 
with  the  army  in  Russia,  was  one  day  at  field-work,  on  the  skirts 
of  a  forest,  and  everything  quiet  around  her,  when  she  repeat 
edly  felt  herself  hit  by  small  stones,  though,  on  looking  round 
she  could  see  nobody.  At  length,  supposing  it  was  some  jest 
she  threw  down  her  implements,  and  stepped  into  the  wood 
whence  they  had  proceeded,  when  she  saw  a  headless  figure 
in  a  soldier's  mantle,  leaning  against  a  tree.  Afraid  to  approach 
she  summoned  some  laborers  from  a  neighboring  field,  who  also 
saw  it ;  but  on  going  up  to  it,  it  disappeared.    The  woman  de 


WRAITHS. 


145 


clared  her  conviction  that  the  circumstance  indicated  her  broth- 
er's death  ;  and  it  was  afterward  ascertained  that  he  had,  on 
that  day,  fallen  in  a  trench. 

Some  few  years  ago,  a  Mrs.  H  ,  residing  in  Limerick, 

had  a  servant  whom  she  much  esteemed,  called  Nelly  Hanlon. 
Nelly  was  a  very  steady  person,  who  seldom  asked  for  a  holy- 
day,  arid  consequently  Mrs.  H          was  the  less  disposed  to 

refuse  her  when  she  requested  a  day's  leave  of  absence  for  the 
purpose  of  attending  a  fair  that  was  to  take  place  a  few  miles 
off.  The  petition  was  therefore  favorably  heard  ;  but  when  Mr. 
H  came  home  and  was  informed  of  Nelly's  proposed  ex- 
cursion, he  said  she  could  not  be  spared,  as  he  had  invited  some 
people  to  dinner  for  that  day,  and  he  had  nobody  he  could  trust 
with  the  keys  of  the  cellar  except  Nelly,  adding  that  it  was  not 
likely  his  business  would  allow  him  to  get  home  time  enough  to 
bring  up  the  wine  himself. 

Unwilling,  however,  after  giving  her  consent,  to  disappoint 

the  girl,  Mrs.  H  said  that  she  would  herself  undertake  the 

cellar  department  on  the  day  in  question  ;  so  when  the  wished- 
fbr  morning  arrived,  Nelly  departed  in  great  spirits,  having 
faithfully  promised  to  return  that  night,  if  possible,  or,  at  the 
latest,  the  following  morning. 

The  day  passed  as  usual,  and  nothing  was  thought  about 
Nelly,  till  the  time  arrived  for  fetching  up  the  wine,  when  Mrs. 

H  proceeded  to  the  cellar-stairs  with  the  key,  followed  by 

a  servant  carrying  a  bottle-basket.  She  had,  however,  scarcely 
begun  to  descend,  when  she  uttered  a  loud  scream  and  dropped 
down  in  a  state  of  insensibility.  She  was  carried  up  stairs  and 
laid  upon  the  bed,  while,  to  the  amazement  of  the  other  ser- 
vants, the  girl  who  had  accompanied  her  said  that  they  had  seen 
Nelly  Hanlon,  dripping  with  water,  standing  at  the  bottom  of 

the  stairs.    Mr.  H  being  sent  for,  or  coming  home  at  the 

moment,  this  story  was  repeated  to  him,  whereupon  he  reproved 
the  woman  for  her  folly  ;  and,  proper  restoratives  being  applied, 

Mrs.  H  at  length  began  to  revive.    As  she  opened  her 

eyes,  she  heaved  a  deep  sigh,  saying,  "  Oh,  Nelly  Hanlon  !"  and 
as  soon  as  she  was  sufficiently  recovered  to  speak,  she  corrobo- 

7 


146 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


rated  what  the  girl  had  said  :  she  had  seen  Nelly  at  the  foot  o 
the  stairs,  dripping  as  if  she  had  just  come  out  of  the  watei 

Mr.  H  used  his  utmost  efforts  to  persuade  his  wife  out  o: 

what  he  looked  upon  to  be  an  illusion  ;  but  in  vain.  "  Nelly,' 
said  he,  "  will  come  home  by-and-by  and  laugh  at  you while 
she,  on  the  contrary,  felt  sure  that  Nelly  was  dead. 

The  night  came,  and  the  morning  came,  but  there  was  nc 
Nelly.  When  two  or  three  days  had  passed,  inquiries  were 
made ;  and  it  was  ascertained  that  she  had  been  seen  at  the  fair, 
and  started  to  return  home  in  the  evening ;  but  from  that  mo- 
ment all  traces  of  her  were  lost  till  her  body  was  ultimately 
found  in  the  river.  How  she  came  by  her  death  was  nevei 
known. 

Now,  in  most  of  these  cases  which  I  have  above  detailed, 
the  person  was  seen  where  his  dying  thoughts  might  naturalh 
be  supposed  to  have  flown,  and  the  visit  seems  to  have  beei 
made  either  immediately  before  or  immediately  after  the  disso- 
lution of  the  body :  in  either  case,  we  may  imagine  that  the 
final  parting  of  the  spirit  had  taken  place,  even  if  the  organic 
life  was  not  quite  extinct. 

I  have  met  with  some  cases  in  which  we  are  not  left  in  an} 
doubt  with  respect  to  the  last  wishes  of  the  dying  person.  Foi 
example  :  a  lady,  with  whom  I  am  acquainted,  was  on  her  way 
to  India  ;  when  near  the  end  of  her  voyage,  she  was  one  night 
awakened  by  a  rustling  in  her  cabin,  and  a  consciousness  that 
there  was  something  hovering  about  her.  She  sat  up,  and  saw 
a  bluish,  cloudy  form  moving  away  ;  but  persuading  herself  it 
must  be  fancy,  she  addressed  herself  again  to  sleep;  but 
soon  as  she  lay  down,  she  both  heard  and  felt  the  same  thing 
it  seemed  to  her  as  if  this  cloudy  form  hung  over  and  enveloped 
her.  Overcome  with  horror,  she  screamed.  The  cloud  thei 
moved  away,  assuming  distinctly  a  human  shape.  The  people 
about  her  naturally  persuaded  her  that  she  had  been  dreaming ; 
and  she  wished  to  think  so ;  but  when  she  arrived  in  India,  the 
first  thing  she  heard  was,  that  a  very  particular  friend  had  come 
down  to  Calcutta  to  be  ready  to  receive  her  on  her  landing, 
but  that  he  had  been  taken  ill  and  died,  saying  he  only  wished 


WRAITHS. 


147 


to  live  to  see  his  old  friend  once  more.  He  had  expired  on  the 
night  she  saw  the  shadowy  form  in  her  room. 

A  very  frightful  instance  of  this  kind  of  phenomenon  is  re- 
lated by  Dr.  H.  Werner,  of  Baron  Emilius  von  O  This 
young  man  had  been  sent  to  prosecute  his  studies  in  Paris ; 
but,  forming  some  bad  connections,  he  became  dissipated,  and 
neglected  them.  His  father's  counsels  were  unheeded,  and  his 
letters  remained  unanswered.  One  day  the  young  baron  was 
sitting  alone  on  a  seat,  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne,  and  had  fallen 
somewhat  into  a  revery,  when,  on  raising  his  eyes,  he  saw  his 
father's  form  before  him.  Believing  it  to  be  a  mere  spectral 
illusion,  he  struck  at  the  shadow  with  his  riding-whip,  upon 
which  it  disappeared.  The  next  day  brought  him  a  letter, 
urging  his  return  home  instantly,  if  he  wished  to  see  his  parent 
alive.  He  went,  but  found  the  old  man  already  in  his  grave. 
The  person  who  had  been  about  him  said  that  he  had  been 
quite  conscious,  and  had  a  great  longing  to  see  his  son ;  he  had, 
indeed,  exhibited  one  symptom  of  delirium,  which  was,  that 
after  expressing  this  desire,  he  had  suddenly  exclaimed,  "  My 
God  !  he  is  striking  at  me  with  his  riding-whip  !"  and  immedi- 
ately expired. 

In  this  case,  the  condition  of  the  dying  man  resembles  that 
of  a  somnambulist,  in  which  the  patient  describes  what  he  sees 
taking  place  at  a  distance ;  and  the  archives  of  magnetism  fur- 
nish some  instances,  especially  that  of  Auguste  Midler,  of  Carls- 
ruhe,  in  which,  by  the  force  of  will,  the  sleeper  has  not  only 
been  able  to  bring  intelligence  from  a  distance,  but  also,  like 
the  American  magician,  to  make  himself  visible.  The  faculties 
of  prophecy  and  clear  or  far  seeing,  frequently  disclosed  by 
dying  persons,  is  fully  acknowledged  by  Dr.  Abercrombie  and 
other  physiologists. 

Mr.  F  saw  a  female  relative,  one  night,  by  his  bedside. 

Thinking  it  was  a  trick  of  some  one  to  frighten  him,  he  strnck 
at  the  figure  ;  whereon  she  said  :  "  What  have  I  done  1  I  know 
I  should  have  told  it  you  before."    This  lady  was  dying  at  a 

distance,  earnestly  desiring  to  speak  to  Mr.  F          before  she 

departed. 


148 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


I  will  conclude  this  chapter  with  the  following  extract  from 
"  Lockhart's  Life  of  Scott :"  — 

"Walter  Scott  to  Daniel  Terry,  April  30,  1818.    (The  new 

house  at  Abbotsford  being  then  in  progress,  Scott  living  in  an 
older  part,  close  adjoining.) 

" '  The  exposed  state  of  my  house  has  led  to  a  myste 

rious  disturbance.  The  night  before  last  we  were  awakened 
by  a  violent  noise,  like  drawing  heavy  boards  along  the  new 
part  of  the  house.  I  fancied  something  had  fallen,  and  thought 
no  more  about  it.  This  was  about  two  in  the  morning.  Last 
night,  at  the  same  witching  hour,  the  very  same  noise  occurred 
Mrs.  Scott,  as  you  know,  is  rather  timbersome ;  so  up  I  got 
with  Beardie's  broadsword  under  my  arm 

"  Bolt  upright, 
And  ready  to  fight." 

But  nothing  was  out  of  order,  neither  can  I  discover  what  oc 
casioned  the  disturbance/  " 

Mr.  Lockhart  adds :  "  On  the  morning  that  Mr.  Terry  re 
ceived  the  foregoing  letter,  in  London,  Mr.  William  Erskine 
was  breakfasting  with  him,  and  the  chief  subject  of  their  con 
versation  was  the  sudden  death  of  George  Bullock,  which  had 
occurred  on  the  same  night,  and,  as  nearly  as  they  could  ascer- 
tain, at  the  very  hour  when  Scott  was  roused  from  his  sleep  by 
the  •  mysterious  disturbance'  here  described.    This  coincidence 
when  Scott  received  Erskine's  minute  detail  of  what  had  hap 
pened  in  Tenterdon  street  (that  is,  the  death  of  Bullock,  who 
had  the  charge  of  furnishing  the  new  rooms  at  Abbotsford) 
made  a  much  stronger  impression  on  his  mind  than  might  be 
gathered  from  the  tone  of  an  ensuing  communication. " 

It  appears  that  Bullock  had  been  at  Abbotsford,  and  mad 
himself  a  great  favorite  with  old  and  young.  Scott,  a  week  or 
two  afterward,  wrote  thus  to  Terry :  "  Were  you  not  struck 
with  the  fantastical  coincidence  of  our  nocturnal  disturbance 
at  Abbotsford,  with  the  melancholy  event  that  followed  1  I  pro- 
test to  you,  the  noise  resembled  half  a  dozen  men  hard  at  work 
putting  up  boards  and  furniture ;  and  nothing  can  be  more  eer- 


DOPPELGANGERS. 


149 


tain  than  that  there  was  nobody  on  the  premises  at  the  time. 
With  a  few  additional  touches,  the  story  would  figure  in  Glan- 
ville  or  Aubrey's  collection.  In  the  meantime,  you  may  set  it 
down  with  poor  Dubisson's  warnings,  as  a  remarkable  coinci- 
dence coming  under  your  own  observation." 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

DOPPELGANGERS,  OR  DOUBLES. 

In  the  instances  detailed  in  the  last  chapter,  the  apparition 
has  shown  itself,  as  nearly  as  could  be  discovered,  at  the  mo- 
ment of  dissolution ;  but  there  are  many  cases  in  which  the 
wraith  is  seen  at  an  indefinite  period  before  or  after  the  catas- 
trophe. Of  these  I  could  quote  a  great  number ;  but  as  they 
generally  resolve  themselves  into  simply  seeing  a  person  where 
they  were  not,  and  death  ensuing  very  shortly  afterward,  a  few 
will  suffice. 

There  is  a  very  remarkable  story  of  this  kind,  related  by 
Macnish,  which  he  calls  "  a  case  of  hallucination,  arising  with- 
out the  individual  being  conscious  of  any  physical  cause  by 
which  it  might  be  occasioned."  If  this  case  stood  alone,  strange 
as  it  is,  I  should  think  so  too :  but  when  similar  instances 
abound,  as  they  do,  I  can  not  bring  myself  to  dispose  of  it  so 

easily.    The  story  is  as  follows :   Mr.  H          was  one  day 

walking  along  the  street,  apparently  in  perfect  health,  when  he 
saw,  or  supposed  he  saw,  his  acquaintance,  Mr.  C  ,  walk- 
ing before  him.  He  called  to  him  aloud ;  but  he  did  not  seem 
to  hear  him,  and  continued  moving  on.  Mr.  H  then  quick- 
ened his  pace  for  the  purpose  of  overtaking  him  ;  but  the  other 
increased  his,  also,  as  if  to  keep  ahead  of  his  pursuer,  and  pro- 
ceeded at  such  a  rate  that  Mr.  H  found  it  impossible  to 

make  up  to  him.    This  continued  for  some  time,  till,  on  Mr. 


150 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


C  's  reaching  a  gate,  he  opened  it  and  passed  in,  slamming 

it  violently  in  Mr.  H  's  face.  Confounded  at  such  treat- 
ment from  a  friend,  the  latter  instantly  opened  the  gate,  and 
looked  down  the  long  lane  into  which  it  led,  where,  to  his 
astonishment,  no  one  was  to  be  seen.  Determined  to  unravel 
the  mystery,  he  then  went  to  Mr.  C  's  house,  and  his  sur- 
prise was  great  to  hear  that  he  was  confined  to  his  bed,  and 
had  been  so  for  several  days.  A  week  or  two  afterward,  these 
gentlemen  met  at  the  house  of  a  common  friend,  when  Mr. 

H          related  the  circumstance,  jocularly  telling  Mr.  C  

that,  as  he  had  seen  his  wraith,  he  of  course  could  not  live  long. 
The  person  addressed  laughed  heartily,  as  did  the  rest  of  the 

party ;  but,  in  a  few  days,  Mr.  C  was  attacked  with  putrid 

6ore  throat  and  died ;  and  within  a  short  period  of  his  death, 
Mr.  H  was  also  in  the  grave. 

This  is  a  very  striking  case ;  the  hastening  on,  and  the  actually 
opening  and  shutting  the  gate,  evincing  not  only  will  but  power  to 
produce  mechanical  effects,  at  a  time  the  person  was  bodily  else- 
where.   It  is  true  he  was  ill,  and  it  is  highly  probable  was  at 

the  time  asleep.    The  showing  himself  to  Mr.  H  ,  who  was 

so  soon  to  follow  him  to  the  grave,  is  another  peculiarity  which 
appears  frequently  to  attend  these  cases,  and  which  seems  like 
what  was  in  old  English,  and  is  still  in  Scotch,  called  a  tryst  — 
an  appointment  to  meet  again  between  those  spirits,  so  soon  to 

be  free.    Supposing  Mr.  C          to  have  been  asleep,  he  was 

possibly,  in  that  state,  aware  of  what  impended  over  both. 

There  is  a  still  more  remarkable  case  given  by  Mr.  Barham 
in  his  reminiscences.  I  have  no  other  authority  for  it :  but  he 
relates,  as  a  fact,  that  a  respectable  young  woman  was  awaked, 
one  night,  by  hearing  somebody  in  her  room,  and  that  on  look- 
ing up  she  saw  a  young  man  to  whom  she  was  engaged.  Ex- 
tremely offended  by  such  an  intrusion,  she  bade  him  instantly 
depart,  if  he  wished  her  ever  to  speak  to  him  again.  Where- 
upon he  bade  her  not  be  frightened,  but  said  he  was  come  to 
tell  her  that  he  was  to  die  that  day  six  weeks,  —  and  then  dis- 
appeared. Having  ascertained  that  the  young  man  himself 
could  not  possibly  have  been  in  her  room,  she  was  naturally 


DOPPELGANGERS. 


151 


much  alarmed,  and,  her  evident  depression  leading  to  some 
inquiries,  she  communicated  what  had  occurred  to  the  family 
with  whom  she  lived  —  I  think  as  dairy-maid  ;  but  I  quote  from 
memory.  They  attached  little  importance  to  what  seemed  so 
improbable,  more  especially  as  the  young  man  continued  in 
perfectly  good  health,  and  entirely  ignorant  of  this  prediction, 
which  his  mistress  had  the  prudence  to  conceal  from  him. 
When  the  fatal  day  arrived,  these  ladies  saw  the  girl  looking 
very  cheerful,  as  they  were  going  for  their  morning's  ride,  and 
observed  to  each  other  that  the  prophecy  did  not  seem  likely 
to  be  fulfilled  ;  but  when  they  returned,  they  saw  her  running 
up  the  avenue  toward  the  house  in  great  agitation,  and  learned 
that  her  lover  was  either  dead  or  dying,  from  an  accident. 

The  only  key  I  can  suggest  as  the  explanation  of  such  a  phe- 
nomenon as  this,  is,  that  the  young  man  in  his  sleep  was  aware 
of  the  fate  that  awaited  him,  —  and  that  while  the  body  lay  in 
his  bed,  in  a  state  approaching  to  trance  or  catalepsy,  the  freed 
spirit  —  free  as  the  spirits  of  the  actual  dead — went  forth  to 
tell  the  tale  to  the  mistress  of  his  soul. 

Franz  von  Baader  says,  in  a  letter  to  Dr.  Kerner,  that 
Eckartshausen,  shortly  before  his  death,  assured  him  that  he 
possessed  the  power  of  making  a  person's  double  or  wraith 
appear,  while  his  body  lay  elsewhere  in  a  state  of  trance  or 
*  catalepsy.  He  added  that  the  experiment  might  be  dangerous, 
if  care  were  not  taken  to  prevent  intercepting  the  rapport  of 
the  ethereal  form  with  the  material  one. 

A  lady,  an  entire  disbeliever  in  these  spiritual  phenomena, 
was  one  day  walking  in  her  own  garden  with  her  husband,  who 
was  indisposed,  leaning  on  her  arm,  when  seeing  a  man  with 
his  back  toward  them,  and  a  spade  in  his  hand,  digging,  she 
exclaimed,  "  Look  there  !  who's  that  ?"  "  Where  V  said  her 
companion  ;  and  at  that  moment  the  figure  leaning  on  the  spade 
turned  round  and  looked  at  her,  sadly  shaking  its  head,  and 
she  saw  it  was  her  husband.  She  avoided  an  explanation,  by 
pretending  she  had  made  a  mistake.  Three  days  afterward  the 
gentleman  died,  —  leaving  her  entirely  converted  to  a  'belief 
she  had  previously  scoffed  at. 


152  THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 

Here,  again,  the  foreknowledge  and  evident  design,  as  well 
as  the  power  of  manifesting  it,  are  extremely  curious  —  more 
especially  as  the  antitype  of  the  figure  was  neither  in  a  trance 
nor  asleep,  but  perfectly  conscious,  walking  and  talking.  If 
any  particular  purpose  were  to  be  gained  by  the  information 
indicated,  the  solution  might  be  less  difficult.  One  object,  it  is 
true,  may  have  been,  and  indeed  was  attained,  namely,  the 
change  in  the  opinions  of  the  wife ;  and  it  is  impossible  to  say 
what  influence  such  a  conversion  may  have  had  on  her  after-life. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  these  cases  are  very  perplexing. 
We  might,  indeed,  get  rid  of  them  by  denying  them  ;  but  the 
instances  are  too  numerous,  and  the  phenomenon  has  been  too 
well  known  in  all  ages,  to  be  set  aside  so  easily.  In  the  above 
examples,  the  apparition,  or  wraith,  has  been  in  some  way  con- 
nected with  the  -death  of  the  person  whose  visionary  likeness  is 
seen;  and,  in  most  of  these  instances,  the  earnest  longing  to 
behold  those  beloved  seems  to  have  been  the  means  of  effecting 
the  object.  The  mystery  of  death  is  to  us  so  awful  and  impen- 
etrable, and  we  know  so  little  of  the  mode  in  which  the  spiritual 
and  the  corporeal  are  united  and  kept  together  during  the  con- 
tinuance of  life,  or  what  condition  may  ensue  when  this  con- 
nection is  about  to  be  dissolved,  that  while  we  look  with  won- 
der upon  such  phenomena  as  those  above  alluded  to,  we  yet 
find  very  few  persons  who  are  disposed  to  reject  them  as 
utterly  apocryphal.  They  feel  that  in  that  department,  already 
so  mysterious,  there  may  exist  a  greater  mystery  still ;  and  the 
very  terror  with  which  the  thoughts  of  present  death  inspires 
most  minds,  deters  people  from  treating  this  class  of  facts  with 
that  scornful  skepticism  with  which  many  approximate  ones 
are  denied  and  laughed  at.  Nevertheless,  if  we  suppose  the 
person  to  have  been  dead,  though  it  be  but  an  inappreciable 
instant  of  time  before  he  appears,  the  appearance  comes  under 
the  denomination  of  what  is  commonly  called  a  ghost ;  for 
whether  the  spirit  has  been  parted  from  the  body  one  second 
or  fifty  years,  ought  to  make  no  difference  in  our  appreciation 
of  the- fact,  nor  is  the  difficulty  less  in  one  case  than  the  other. 

I  mention  this  because  I  have  met  with,  and  do  meet  with, 


DOPPELG  ANGERS. 


153 


people  constantly,  who  admit  this  class  of  facts,  while  they 
declare  they  can  not  believe  in  ghosts ;  the  instances,  they  say, 
of  people  being  seen  at  a  distance  at  the  period  of  their  death, 
are  too  numerous  to  permit  of  the  fact  being  denied.  In  granting 
it,  however,  they  seem  to  me  to  grant  everything.  If,  as  I  have 
said  above,  the  person  be  dead,  the  form  seen  is  a  ghost  or  spec- 
tre, whether  he  has  been  dead  a  second  or  a  century ;  if  he  be 
alive,  the  difficulty  is  certainly  not  diminished  ;  on  the  contrary, 
it  appears  to  me  to  be  considerably  augmented ;  and  it  is  to  this 
perplexing  class  of  facts  that  I  shall  next  proceed,  namely,  those 
in  which  the  person  is  not  only  alive,  as  in  some  of  the  cases 
above  related,  but  where  the  phenomenon  seems  to  occur  with- 
out any  reference  to  the  death  of  the  subject,  present  or  pro- 
spective. 

In  either  case,  we  are  forced  to  conclude  that  the  thing  seen 
is  the  same ;  the  questions  are,  what  is  it  that  we  see,  and  how 
does  it  render  itself  visible  ?  and,  still  more  difficult  to  answer, 
appears  the  question,  of  how  it  can  communicate  intelligence, 
or  exert  a  mechanical  force.  As,  however,  this  investigation 
will  be  more  in  its  place  when  I  have  reached  that  department 
of  my  subject  commonly  called  ghosts,  I  will  defer  it  for  the 
present,  and  merely  confine  myself  to  that  of  doubles,  or  doppel- 
gangers,  as  the  Germans  denominate  the  appearance  of  a  per- 
son out  of  his  body. 

In  treating  of  the  case  of  Auguste  Muller,  a  remarkable  som- 
nambule,  who  possessed  the  power  of  appearing  elsewhere, 
while  his  body  lay  cold  and  stiff  in  his  bed,  Professor  Keiser, 
who  attended  him,  says,  that  the  phenomenon,  as  regards  the 
seer,  must  be  looked  upon  as  purely  subjective  —  that  is,  that 
there  was  no  outstanding  form  of  Auguste  Muller  visible  to  the 
sensuous  organs,  but  that  the  magnetic  influence  of  the  som- 
nambule,  by  the  force  of  his  will,  acted  on  the  imagination  of 
the  seer,  and  called  up  the  image  which  he  believed  he  saw. 
But  then,  allowing  this  to  be  possible,  as  Dr.  Werner  says,  how 
are  we  to  account  for  those  numerous  cases  in  which  there  is 
no  somnambule  concerned  in  the  matter,  and  no  especial  rap- 
port, that  we  are  aware  of,  established  between  the  parties? 

7* 


154 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


And  yet  these  latter  cases  are  much  the  most  frequent ;  for, 
although  I  have  met  with  numerous  instances  recorded  by  the 
German  physiologists,  of  what  is  called  far-working  on  the  part 
of  the  somnambules,  this  power  of  appearing  out  of  the  body 
seems  to  be  a  very  rare  one.  Many  persons  will  be  surprised 
at  these  allusions  to  a  kind  of  magnetic  phenomena,  of  which,  in 
this  country,  so  little  is  known  or  believed ;  but  the  physiolo- 
gists and  psychologists  of  Germany  have  been  studying  this 
subject  for  the  last  fifty  years,  and  the  volumes  filled  with  their 
theoretical  views  and  records  of  cases,  are  numerous  beyond 
anything  the  English  public  has  an  idea  of. 

The  only  other  theory  I  have  met  with,  which  pretends  to 
explain  the  mode  of  this  double  appearance,  is  that  of  the  spirit 
leaving  the  body,  as  we  have  supposed  it  to  do  in  cases  of 
dreams  and  catalepsy ;  in  which  instances  the  nerve-spirit,  which 
seems  to  be  the  archaeus  or  astral  spirit  of  the  ancient  philoso- 
phers, has  the  power  of  projecting  a  visible  body  out  of  the  im- 
ponderable matter  of  the  atmosphere.  According  to  this  the- 
ory, this  nerve-spirit,  which  seems  to  be  an  embodiment  of — 
or  rather,  a  body  constructed  out  of  the  nervous  fluid,  or  ether 
—  in  short,  the  spiritual  body  of  St.  Paul,  is  the  bond  of  union 
between  the  body  and  the  soul,  or  spirit ;  and  has  the  plastic 
force  of  raising  up  an  aerial  form.  Being  the  highest  organic 
power,  it  can  not  by  any  other,  physical  or  chemical,  be  de- 
stroyed ;  and  when  the  body  is  cast  off,  it  follows  the  soul ;  and 
as,  during  life,  it  is  the  means  by  which  the  soul  acts  upon  the 
body,  and  is  thus  enabled  to  communicate  with  the  external 
world,  so  when  the  spirit  is  disembodied,  it  is  through  this 
nerve-spirit  that  it  can  make  itself  visible,  and  even  exercise 
mechanical  powers. 

It  is  certain,  that  not  only  somnambules,  but  sick  persons, 
are  occasionally  sensible  of  a  feeling  that  seems  to  lend  some 
countenance  to  this  latter  theory. 

The  girl  at  Canton,  for  example,  mentioned  in  a  former  chap- 
ter, as  well  as  many  somnambulic  patients,  declare,  while  their 
bodies  are  lying  stiff  and  cold,  that  ihey  see  it,  as  if  out  of  it ; 
and,  in  some  instances,  they  describe  particulars  of  its  appear- 


DOPPELGANGERS. 


155 


ance,  which  they  could  not  see  in  the  ordinary  way.  There  are 
also  numerous  cases  of  sick  persons  seeing  themselves  double, 
where  no  tendency  to  delirium  or  spectral  illusion  has  been  oh 
served.  These  are,  in  this  country,  always  placed  under  the 
latter  category ;  but  I  find  various  instances  recorded  by  the 
German  physiologists,  where  this  appearance  has  been  seen  by 
others,  and  even  by  children,  at  the  same  that  it  was  felt  by 
the  invalid.  In  one  of  these  cases,  I  find  the  sick  person  say- 
ing, "  I  can  not  think  how  I  am  lying.  It  seems  to  me  that  I 
am  divided  and  lying  in  two  places  at  once."  It  is  remarkable, 
that  a  friend  of  my  own,  during  an  illness  in  the  autumn  of  1S45, 
expressed  precisely  the  same  feeling ;  we,  however,  saw  noth- 
ing of  this  second  ego  ;  but  it  must  be  remembered,  that  the 
seeing  of  these  things,  as  I  have  said  in  a  former  chapter,  prob- 
ably depends  on  a  peculiar  faculty  or  condition  of  the  seer.  The 
servant  of  Elisha  was  not  blind,  but  yet  he  could  not  see  what 
his  master  saw,  till  his  eyes  were  opened  —  that  is,  till  he  was 
rendered  capable  of  perceiving  spiritual  objects. 

When  Peter  was  released  from  prison  by  the  angel— -  and  it 
is  not  amiss  here  to  remark,  that  even  he  "  wist  not  that  it  was 
true  which  was  done  by  the  angel,  but  thought  he  saw  a  vision," 
that  is,  he  did  not  believe  his  senses,  but  supposed  himself  the 
victim  of  a  spectral  illusion  —  but  when  he  was  released,  and 
went  and  knocked  at  the  door  of  the  gate,  where  many  of  his 
friends  were  assembled,  they,  not  conceiving  it  possible  he  could 
have  escaped,  said,  when  the  girl  who  had  opened  the  door  in- 
sisted that  he  was  there,  M  It  is  his  angel."  What  did  they 
mean  by  this  %  The  expression  is  not  an  angel,  but  his  angel. 
Now,  it  is  not  a  little  remarkable,  that  in  the  East,  to  this  day, 
a  double,  or  doppelganger,  is  called  a  man's  angel,  or  messen- 
ger. As  we  can  not  suppose  that  this  term  was  used  otherwise 
than  seriously  by  the  disciples  that  were  gathered  together  in 
Mark's  house,  for  they  were  in  trouble  about  Peter,  and,  when 
he  arrived,  were  engaged  in  prayer,  we  are  entitled  to  believe 
they  alluded  to  some  recognised  phenomenon.  They  knew, 
either  that  the  likeness  of  a  man  —  his  spiritual  self — some- 
times appeared  where  bodily  he  was  not ;  and  that  this  imago  or 


15G 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


idolon  was  capable  of  exerting  a  mechanical  force,  or  else  that 
other  spirits  sometimes  assumed  a  mortal  form,  or  they  would 
not  have  supposed  it  to  be  Peter's  angel  that  had  knocked  at 
the  gate. 

Dr.  Ennemoser,  who  always  leans  to  the  physical  rather  than 
the  psychical  explanation  of  a  phenomenon,  says,  that  the  faculty 
of  self-seeing,  which  is  analogous  to  seeing  another  person's 
double,  is  to  be  considered  an  illusion  ;  but  that  this  imago  of  an- 
other seen  at  a  distance,  at  the  moment  of  death,  must  be  sup- 
posed to  have  an  objective  reality.  But  if  we  are  capable  of  thus 
perceiving  the  imago  of  another  person,  I  can  not  comprehend 
why  we  may  not  see  our  own ;  unless,  indeed,  the  former  was 
never  perceived  but  when  the  body  of  the  person  seen  was  in  a 
state  of  insensibility  ;  but  this  does  not  always  seem  to  be  a  neces- 
sary condition,  as  will  appear  by  some  examples  I  am  about  to  de- 
tail. The  faculty  of  perceiving  the  object,  Dr.  Ennemoser  consid- 
ers analogous  to  that  of  second  sight,  and  thinks  it  may  be  evolved 
by  local,  as  well  as  idiosyncratical  conditions.  The  difficulty 
arising  from  the  fact  that  some  persons  are  in  the  habit  of  see- 
ing the  wraiths  of  their  friends  and  relations,  must  be  explained 
by  his  hypothesis.  The  spirit,  as  soon  as  liberated  from  the 
body,  is  adapted  for  communion  with  all  spirits,  embodied  or 
otherwise ;  but  all  embodied  spirits  are  not  prepared  for  com- 
munion with  it. 

A  Mr.  R  ,  a  gentleman  who  has  attracted  public  attention 

by  some  scientific  discoveries,  had  had  a  fit  of  illness  at  Rotter- 
dam. He  was  in  a  state  of  convalescence,  but  was  still  so  far 
taking  care  of  himself  as  to  spend  part  of  the  day  in  bed,  when, 
as  he  was  lying  there  one  morning,  the  door  opened,  and  there 
entered  in  tears,,  a  lady  with  whom  he  was  intimately  acquainted, 
but  whom  he  believed  to  be  in  England.  She  walked  hastily 
to  the  side  of  his  bed,  wrung  her  hands,  evincing  by  her  ges- 
tures extreme  anguish  of  mind,  and  before  he  could  sufficiently 
recover  his  surprise  to  inquire  the  cause  of  her  distress  and 
sudden  appearance,  she  was  gone.  She  did  not  disappear,  but 
walked  out  of  the  room  again,  and  Mr.  R  immediately  sum- 
moned the  servants  of  the  hotel,  for  the  purpose  of  making  in- 


DOPPELG  ANGERS. 


157 


quiries  about  the  English  lady  —  when  she  came,  what  had  hap 
pened  to  her,  and  where  she  had  gone  to,  on  quitting  his  room  1 
The  people  declared  there  was  no  such  person  there  ;  he  in- 
sisted there  was,  but  they  at  length  convinced  him  that  they,  at 
least,  knew  nothing  about  her.  When  his  physician  visited  him, 
he  naturally  expressed  the  great  perplexity  into  which  he  had 
been  thrown  by  this  circumstance  ;  and,  as  the  doctor  could  find 
do  symptoms  about  his  patient  that  could  warrant  a  suspicion 
of  spectral  illusion,  they  made  a  note  of  the  date  and  hour  of 

the  occurrence,  and  Mr.  R          took  the  earliest  opportunity 

of  ascertaining  if  anything  had  happened  to  the  lady  in  ques- 
tion. Nothing  had  happened  to  herself,  but  at  that  precise  pe- 
riod her  son  had  expired,  and  she  was  actually  in  the  state  of 
distress  in  which  Mr.  R  beheld  her.  It  would  be  extreme- 
ly interesting  to  know  whether  her  thoughts  had  been  intensely 

directed  to  Mr.  R  at  the  moment ;  but  that  is  a  point  which 

I  have  not  been  able  to  ascertain.  At  all  events  the  impelling 
cause  of  the  form  projected,  be  the  mode  of  it  what  it  may,  ap- 
pears to  have  been  violent  emotion.  The  following  circumstance, 
which  is  forwarded  to  me  by  the  gentleman  to  whom  it  occurred, 
appears  to  have  the  same  origin  :  — 

"  On  the  evening  of  the  12th  of  March,  1792,"  says  Mr.  H  , 

an  artist,  and  a  man  of  science,  "  I  had  been  reading  in  the  '  Phil- 
osophical Transactions,'  and  retired  to  my  room  somewhat  fa- 
tigued, but  not  inclined  to  sleep.  It  was  a  bright  moonlight 
night  and  I  had  extinguished  my  candle  and  was  sitting  on  the 
side  of  the  bed,  deliberately  taking  off  my  clothes,  when  I  was 
amazed  to  behold  the  visible  appearance  of  my  half-uncle,  Mr.  R. 
Robertson,  standing  before  me  ;  and,  at  the  same  instant,  I  heard 
the  words,  '  Twice  will  be  sufficient  /'  The  face  was  so  distinct 
that  I  actually  saw  the  pock-pits.  His  dress  seemed  to  be  made 
of  a  strong  twilled  sort  of  sackcloth,  and  of  the  same  dingy  color. 
It  was  more  like  a  woman's  dress  than  a  man's  —  resembling  a 
petticoat,  the  neck-band  close  to  the  chin,  and  the  garment  cov- 
ering the  whole  person,  so  that  I  saw  neither  hands  nor  feet. 
While  the  figure  stood  there,  I  twisted  my  fingers  till  they 
cracked,  that  I  might  be  sure  1  was  awake. 


158 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


"  On  the  following  morning,  I  inquired  if  anybody  bad  beard 
lately  of  Mr.  R.,  and  was  well  laughed  at  when  I  confessed  the 
origin  of  my  inquiry.  I  confess  I  thought  he  was  dead  ;  but 
when  my  grandfather  heard  the  story,  he  said  that  the  dress  I 
described,  resembled  the  strait-jacket  Mr.  R.  had  been  put  in 
formerly,  under  an  attack  of  insanity.  Subsequently,  we 
learned  that  on  the  night,  and  at  the  very  hour  I  had  seen  him, 
he  had  attempted  suicide,  and  been  actually  put  into  a  strait- 
jacket. 

*  He  afterward  recovered,  and  went  to  Egypt  with  Sir  Ralph 
Abercrombie.  Some  people  laugh  at  this  story,  and  maintain 
that  it  was  a  delusion  of  the  imagination  ;  but  surely  this  is 
blinking  the  question  !  Why  should  my  imagination  create 
such  an  image,  while  my  mind  was  entirely  engrossed  .with  a 
mathematical  problem  ]" 

The  words  "  Twice  will  be  sufficient.1''  probably  embodied  the 
thought,  uttered  or  not,  of  the  maniac,  under  the  influence  of 
his  emotion  —  two  blows  or  two  stabs  would  be  sufficient  for 
his  purpose. 

Dr.  Kerner  relates  a  case  of  a  Dr.  John  B  ,  who  was 

studying  medicine  in  Paris,  seeing  his  mother  one  night,  shortly 
after  he  had  got  into  bed,  and  before  he  had  put  out  his  light. 
She  was  dressed  after  a  fashion  in  which  he  had  never  seen  her; 
but  she  vanished,. —  and  thus,  aware  of  the  nature  of  the  ap- 
pearance, he  became  much  alarmed,  and  wrote  home  to  inquire 
after  her  health.  The  answer  he  received  was  that  she  was 
extremely  unwell,  having  been  under  the  most  intense  anxiety 
on  his  account,  from  hearing  that  several  medical  students  in 
Paris  had  been  arrested  as  resurrectionists ;  and,  knowing  his 
passion  for  anatomical  investigations,  she  had  apprehended  he 
might  be  among  the  number.  The  letter  concluded  with  an 
earnest  request  that  he  would  pay  her  a  visit.  He  did  so ;  and 
his  surprise  was  so  great  on  meeting  her,  to  perceive  that  she 
was  dressed  exactly  as  he  had  seen  her  in  his  room  at  Paris, 
that  he  could  not  at  first  embrace  her,  and  was  obliged  to 
explain  the  cause  of  his  astonishment  and  repugnance. 

An  analogous  case  to  these  is  that  of  Dr.  Donne, — which  is 


DOPPELGANGERS. 


159 


already  mentioned  in  so  many  publications,  that  I  should  not 
allude  to  it  here  but  for  the  purpose  of  showing  that  these 
examples  belong  to  a  class  of  facts,  and  that  it  is  not  to  be  sup- 
posed that  similarity  argues  identity,  or  that  one  and  the  same 
story  is  reproduced  with  new  names  and  localities.  I  mention 
this  because,  when  circumstances  of  this  kind  are  related,  I 
sometimes  hear  people  say,  "  Oh,  I  have  heard  that  story  be- 
fore, but  it  was  said  to  have  happened  to  Mr.  So-and-so,  or  at 
such  a  place ;  the  truth  being,  that  these  things  happen  in  all 
places  and  to  a  great  variety  of  people. 

Dr.  Donne  was  with  the  embassy  in  Paris,  where  he  had 
been  but  a  short  time,  when  his  friend  Mr.  Roberts,  entering 
the  salon,  found  him  in  a  state  of  considerable  agitation.  As 
soon  as  he  was  sufficiently  recovered  to  speak,  he  said  that  his 
wife  had  passed  twice  through  the  room  with  a  dead  child  in 
her  arms.  An  express  was  immediately  despatched  to  England 
to  inquire  for  the  lady,  and  the  intelligence  returned  was  that, 
after  much  suffering,  she  had  been  delivered  of  a  dead  infant. 
The  delivery  had  taken  place  at  the  time  that  her  husband  had 
seen  her  in  Paris.  Nobody  has  ever  disputed  Dr.  Donne's 
assertion  that  he  saw  his  wife :  but,  as  usual,  the  case  is 
crammed  into  the  theory  of  spectral  illusions.  They  say  Dr. 
Donne  was  naturally  very  anxious  about  his  wife's  approaching 
confinement,  of  which  he  must  have  been  aware,  and  that  his 
excited  imagination  did  all  the  rest.  In  the  first  place,  I  do 
not  find  it  recorded  that  he  was  suffering  any  particular  anxiety 
on  the  subject ;  and,  even  if  he  were,  the  coincidences  in  time 
and  in  the  circumstance  of  the  dead  child  remain  unexplained. 
Neither  are  we  led  to  believe  that  the  doctor  was  unwell,  or 
living  the  kind  of  life  that  is  apt  to  breed  thick-coming  fancies. 
He  was  attached  to  the  embassy  in  the  gay  city  ef  Paris ;  he 
had  just  been  taking  luncheon  with  others  of  the  suite,  and  had 
been  left  a*lonefcut  a  short  time,  when  he  was  found  in  the  state 
of  amazement  above  described.  If  such  extraordinary  cases  of 
spectral  illusion  as  this,  and  many  others  I  am  recording,  can 
suddenly  arise  in  constitutions  apparently  healthy,  it  is  certainly 
high  time  that  the  medical  world  reconsider  the  subject,  and 


160 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


give  us  some  more  comprehensible  theory  of  it ;  if  they  are  no 
cases  of  spectral  illusion,  but  are  to  be  explained  under  th? 
vague  and  abused  term  imagination,  let  us  be  told  somethin 
more  about  imagination  —  a  service  which  those  who  conside 
the  word  sufficient  to  account  for  these  strange  phenomena 
must  of  course  be  qualified  to  perform.    If,  however,  both  these 
hypotheses — for  they  are  but  simple  hypotheses,  unsupporl 
by  any  proof  whatever,  only,  being  delivered  with  an  air 
authority  in  a  rationalistic  age,  they  have  been  allowed  to  pas 
unquestioned — if,  however,  they  are  not  found  sufficient  t 
satisfy  a  vast  number  of  minds,  which  I  know  to  be  the  case, 
think  the  inquiry  I  am  instituting  can  not  be  wholly  useless  c: 
unacceptable,  let  it  lead  us  where  it  may.    The  truth  is  all 
seek  ;  and  I  think  there  is  a  very  important  truth  to  be  deduce 
from  the  further  investigation  of  this  subject  in  its  various  rela 
tions  —  in  short,  a  truth  of  paramount  importance  to  all  others 
one  which  contains  evidence  of  a  fact  in  which  we  are  mor 
deeply  concerned  than  in  any  other,  and  which,  if  well  estab 
lished,  brings  demonstration  to  confirm  intuition  and  tradition 
I  am  very  well  aware  of  all  the  difficulties  in  the  way  —  diffi 
culties  internal  and  external, — many  inherent  to  the  subject 
itself,  and  others  extraneous  but  inseparable  from  it ;  and  I  am 
very  far  from  supposing  that  my  book  is  to  settle  the  question 
even  with  a  single  mind.    All  I  hope  or  expect  is  to  show  that 
the  question  is  not  disposed  of  yet,  either  by  the  rationalists  o 
the  physiologists,  and  that  it  is  still  an  open  one ;  and  all  I  de 
sire  is  to  arouse  inquiry  and  curiosity,  and  that  thus  some  mind 
better  qualified  than  mine  to  follow  out  the  investigation,  may 
be  incited  to  undertake  it. 

Dr.  Kerner  mentions  the  case  of  a  lady  named  Dillenius,  wh< 
was  awakened  one  night  by  her  son,  a  child  six  years  of  age  ;  he 
sister-in-law,  who  slept  in  the  same  room,  also  awoke  at  the 
same  time,  and  all  three  saw  Madame  Dilleniu»  enter  the  room 
attired  in  a  black  dress,  which  she  had  lately  bought.  The  sis 
ter  said,  "  I  see  you  double !  you  are  in  bed,  and  yet  you  are 
walking  about  the  room."  They  were  both  extremely  alarmed 
while  the  figure  stood  between  the  doors  in  a  melancholy  atti 


DOPPELGANGERS  AND  SELF-SEEING. 


161 


tilde  with  the  head  leaning  on  the  hand.  The  child  —  who 
also  saw  it,  but  seems  not  to  have  been  terrified — jumped  out 
of  bed,  and  running  to  the  figure,  put  his  hand  through  it  as  he 
attempted  to  push  it,  exclaiming,  "  Go  away,  you  black  woman." 
The  form,  however,  remained  as  before  ;  and  the  child,  becom- 
ing alarmed,  sprung  into  bed  again.  Madame  Dillenius  ex- 
pected that  the  appearance  foreboded  her  own  death ;  but  that 
did  not  ensue.  A  serious  accident  immediately  afterward  oc- 
curred to  her  husband,  and  she  fancied  there  might  be  some 
connection  between  the  two  events. 

This  is  one  of  those  cases  which,  from  their  extremely  per- 
plexing nature,  have  induced  some  psychologists  to  seek  an 
explanation  in  the  hypothesis  that  other  spirits  may  for  some 
purpose,  or  under  certain  conditions,  assume  the  form  of  a  per- 
son with  a  view  to  giving  an  intimation  or  impression,  which 
the  gulf  separating  the  material  from  the  spiritual  world  ren- 
ders it  difficult  to  convey.  As  regards  such  instances  as  that 
of  Madame  Dillenius,  however,  we  are  at  a  loss  to  discover  any 
motive  —  unless,  indeed,  it  be  sympathy  —  for  such  an  exertion 
of  power,  supposing  it  to  be  possessed.  But  in  the  famous 
case  of  Catherine  of  Russia,  who  is  said,  while  lying  in  bed,  to 
have  been  seen  by  the  ladies  to  enter  the  throne-room,  and, 
being  informed  of  the  circumstance,  went  herself  and  saw  the 
figure  seated  on  the  throne,  and  bade  her  guards  fire  on  it,  we 
may  conceive  it  possible  that  her  guardian-spirit,  if  such  she 
had,  might  adopt  this  mode  of  warning  her  to  prepare  for  a 
change,  which,  after  such  a  life  as  hers,  we  are  entitled  to  con- 
clude she  was  not  very  fit  to  encounter. 

There  are  numerous  examples  of  similar  phenomena  to  be 
met  with.    Professor  Stilling  relates  that  he  heard  from  the  son 

of  a  Madame  M  ,  that  his  mother,  having  sent  her  maid  up 

stairs  on  an  errand,  the  woman  came  running  down  in  a  great 
fright,  saying  that  her  mistress  was  sitting  above,  in  her  arm- 
chair, looking  precisely  as  she  had  left  her  below.  The  lady 
went  up  stairs,  and  saw  herself  as  described  by  the  woman, 
very  shortly  after  which  she  died. 

Dr.  Werner  relates  that  a  jeweller  at  Ludwigsburg,  named 


162 


THE  NIHGT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


Ratzel,  when  in  perfect  health,  one  evening,  on  turning  the  cor- 
ner of  a  street,  met  his  own  form,  face  to  face.  The  figure 
seemed  as  real  and  lifelike  as  himself;  and  he  was  so  close  as 
to  look  into  its  very  eyes.  He  was  seized  with  terror,  and  it 
vanished.  He  related  the  circumstance  to  several  people,  and 
endeavored  to  laugh,  but,  nevertheless,  it  was  evident  he  was 
painfully  impressed  with  it.  Shortly  afterward,  as  he  was  pas- 
sing through  a  forest,  he  fell  in  with  some  wood-cutters,  who 
asked  him  to  lend  a  hand  to  the  ropes  with  which  they  were 
pulling  down  an  oak-tree.    He  did  so,  and  was  killed  by  its  fall. 

Becker,  professor  of  mathematics  at  Rostock,  having  fallen 
into  argument  with  some  friends  regarding  a  disputed  point  of 
theology,  on  going  to  his  library  to  fetch  a  book  which  he  wished 
to  refer  to,  saw  himself  sitting  at  the  table  in  the  seat  he  usu- 
ally occupied.  He  approached  the  figure,  which  appeared  to 
be  reading,  and,  looking  over  its  shoulder,  he  observed  that  the 
book  open  before  it  was  a  bible,  and  that,  with  one  of  the  fin- 
gers of  the  right  hand,  it  pointed  to  the  passage  —  "  Make  ready 
thy  house,  for  thou  must  die!"  He  returned  to  the  company, 
and  related  what  he  had  seen,  and,  in  spite  of  all  their  argu- 
ments to  the  contrary,  remained  fully  persuaded  that  his  death 
was  at  hand.  He  took  leave  of  his  friends,  and  expired  on  the 
following  day,  at  six  o'clock  in  the  evening.  He  had  already 
attained  a  considerable  age. 

Those  who  would  not  believe  in  the  appearance,  said  he  had 
died  of  the  fright ;  but,  whether  he  did  so  or  not,  the  circum- 
stance is  sufficiently  remarkable :  and,  if  this  were  a  real,  out- 
standing apparition,  it  would  go  strongly  to  support  the  hypoth- 
esis alluded  to  above,  while,  if  it  were  a  spectral  illusion,  it  is 
certainly  an  infinitely  strange  one. 

As  I  am  aware  how  difficult  it  is,  except  where  the  appear- 
ance is  seen  by  more  persons  than  one,  to  distinguish  cases  of 
actual  self-seeing  from  those  of  spectral  illusion,  I  do  not  linger 
longer  in  this  department ;  but,  returning  to  the  analogous  sub- 
ject of  doppcl gangers,  I  will  relate  a  few  curious  instances  of 
this  kind  of  phenomena  : — 

Stilling  relates  that  a  government-officer,  of  the  name  of  Trip- 


DOPPELGANGERS  AND  SELF-SEEING.  163 


lin,  in  Weimar,  on  going  to  his  office  to  fetch  a  paper  of  im- 
portance, saw  his  own  likeness  sitting  there,  with  the  deed 
before  him.  Alarmed,  he  returned  home,  and  desired  his  maid 
to  go  there  and  fetch  the  paper  she  would  find  on  the  table. 
The  maid  saw  the  same  form,  and  imagined  that  her  master  had 
gone  by  another  road,  and  got  there  before  her.  His  mind 
seems  to  have  preceded  his  body. 

The  land  rich  ter,  or  sheriff,  F  ,  in  Frankfort,  sent  his  sec- 
retary on  an  errand.  Presently  afterward,  the  secretary  re- 
entered the  room,  and  laid  hold  of  a  book.  His  master  asked 
him  what  had  brought  him  back,  whereupon  the  figure  van- 
ished, and  the  book  fell  to  the  ground.  It  was  a  volume  of 
Linnaeus.  In  the  evening,  when  the  secretary  returned,  and 
was  interrogated  with  regard  to  his  expedition,  he  said  that  he 
had  fallen  into  an  eager  dispute  with  an  acquaintance,  as  he 
went  along,  about  some  botanical  question,  and  had  ardently 
wished  he  had  had  his  Linnaeus  with  him  to  refer  to. 

Dr.  Werner  relates  that  Professor  Happach  had  an  elderly 
maid-servant,  who  was  in  the  habit  of  coming  every  morning  to 
call  him,  and  on  entering  the  room,  which  he  generally  heard 
her  do,  she  usually  looked  at  a  clock  which  stood  under  the 
mirror.  One  morning,  she  entered  so  softly,  that,  though  he 
saw  her,  he  did  not  hear  her  foot.  She  went,  as  was  her  cus- 
tom, to  the  clock,  and  came  to  his  bedside,  but  suddenly  turned 
round  and  left  the  room.  He  called  after  her,  but  she  not 
answering,  he  jumped  out  of  bed  and  pursued  her.  He  could 
not  see  her,  however,  till  he  reached  her  room,  where  he  found 
her  fast  asleep  in  bed.  Subsequently,  the  same  thing  occurred 
frequently  with  this  woman. 

An  exactly  parallel  case  was  related  to  me,  as  occurring  to 
himself,  by  a  publisher  in  Edinburgh.  His  housekeeper  was 
in  the  habit  of  calling  him  every  morning.  On  one  occasion, 
being  perfectly  awake,  he  saw  her  enter,  walk  to  the  window, 
and  go  out  again  without  speaking.  Being  in  the  habit  of  fast- 
ening his  door,  he  supposed  he  had  omitted  to  do  so  ;  but  pres- 
ently afterward  he  heard  her  knocking  to  come  in,  and  he  found 
the. door  was  still  locked     She  assured  him  she  had  not  been 


164 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


there  before.  He  was  in  perfectly  good  health  at  the  tim 
this  happened. 

Only  a  few  nights  since,  a  lady,  with  whom  I  am  intimatel 
acquainted,  was  in  bed,  and  had  not  been  to  sleep,  when  sh 
saw  one  of  her  daughters,  who  slept  in  an  upper  room,  and  who 
had  retired  to  rest  some  time  before,  standing  at  the  foot  of  he 

bed.    "  H  ,"  she  said,  "  what  is  the  matter  1  what  are  yo 

come  for?"    The  daughter  did  not  answer,  but  moved  away. 
The  mother  jumped  out  of  bed,  but  not  seeing  her,  got  in  again 
but  the  figure  was  still  there.    Perfectly  satisfied  it  was  really 
her  daughter,  she  spoke  to  her,  asking  if  anything  had  hap- 
pened ;  but  again  the  figure  moved  silently  away,  and  again  th 
mother  jumped  out  of  bed,  and  actually  went  part  of  the  way 
up  stairs  :  and  this  occurred  a  third  time  !    The  daughter  was 
during  the  whole  of  this  time  asleep  in  her  bed,  and  the  lad 
herself  is  quite  in  her  usual  state  of  health — not  robust,  but  no 
by  any  means  sickly,  nor  in  the  slightest  degree  hysterical  o 
nervous ;  yet  she  is  perfectly  convinced  that  she  saw  the  figure 
of  her  daughter  on  that  occasion,  though  quite  unable  to  ac 
count  for  the  circumstance.    Probably  the  daughter  was  dream 
ing  of  the  mother. 

Edward  Stern,  author  of  some  German  works,  had  a  frien 
who  was  frequently  seen  out  of  the  body,  as  the  Germans  te 
it ;  and  the  father  of  that  person  was  so  much  the  subject  of  thi 
phenomenon,  that  he  was  frequently  observed  to  enter  his  hous 
while  he  was  yet  working  in  the  fields  !  His  wife  used  to  sa 
to  him,  "  Why,  papa,  you  came  home  before ;"  and  he  woul 
answer,  "  I  dare  say,  I  was  so  anxious  to  get  away  earlier,  bu 
it  was  impossible  !" 

The  cook  in  a  convent  of  nuns,  at  Ebersdorf,  was  frequentl 
seen  picking  herbs  in  the  garden,  when  she  was  in  the  kitchei 
and  much  in  need  of  them. 

A  Danish  physician,  whose  name  Dr.  Werner  does  not  men 
tion,  is  said  to  have  been  frequently  seen  entering  a  patient' 
room,  and  on  being  spoken  to,  the  figure  would  disappear,  wit 
a  sigh.  This  used  to  occur  when  he  had  made  an  appointmen 
which  he  was  prevented  keeping,  and  was  rendered  uneasy  b 


DOPPELGANGERS  AND  SELF-SEEING. 


165 


the  failure.  The  hearing  of  it,  however,  occasioned  him  such 
an  unpleasant  sensation,  that  he  requested  his  patients  never  to 
tell  him  when  it  happened. 

A  president  of  the  supreme  court,  in  Ulm,  named  Pfizer,  at- 
tests the  truth  of  the  following  case :  A  gentleman,  holding  an 
official  situation,  had  a  son  at  Gottingen,  who  wrote  home  to 
his  father,  requesting  him  to  send  him,  without  delay,  a  certain 
hook,  which  he  required  to  aid  him  in  preparing  a  dissertation 
he  was  engaged  in.  The  father  answered  that  he  had  sought 
hut  could  not  find  the  work  in  question.  Shortly  afterward,  the 
latter  had  been  taking  a  book  from  his  shelves,  when,  on  turn- 
ing round,  he  beheld,  to  his  amazement,  his  son  just  in  the  act 
of  stretching  up  his  hand  toward  one  on  a  high  shelf  in  another 
part  of  the  room.  "  Hallo !"  he  exclaimed,  supposing  it  to  be 
the  young  man  himself,  but  the  figure  disappeared ;  and,  on 
examining  the  shelf,  the  father  found  there  the  book  that  was 
required,  which  he  immediately  forwarded  to  Gottingen  ;  but 
before  it  could  arrive  there,  he  received  a  letter  from  his  son, 
describing  the  exact  spot  where  it  was  to  be  found. 

A  case  of  what  is  called  spectral  illusion  is  mentioned  by  Dr. 
Paterson,  which  appears  to  me  to  belong  to  the  class  of  phe- 
nomena I  am  treating  of.    One  Sunday  evening,  Miss  N  

was  left  at  home,  the  sole  inmate  of  the  house,  not  being  per- 
mitted to  accompany  her  family  to  church  on  account  of  her 
delicate  state  of  health.  Her  father  was  an  infirm  old  man,  who 
seldom  went  from  home,  and  she  was  not  aware  whether,  on 
this  occasion,  he  had  gone  ont  with  the  rest  or  not.  By-and-by, 
there  came  on  a  severe  storm  of  thunder,  lightning,  and  rain, 

and  Miss  N          is  described  as  becoming  very  uneasy  about 

her  father.  Under  the  influence  of  this  feeling,  Dr.  Paterson 
says  she  went  into  the  back  room,  where  he  usually  sat,  and 
there  saw  him  in  his  arm-chair.  Not  doubting  but  it  was  him- 
self, she  advanced  and  laid  her  hand  upon  his  shoulder,  but  her 
hand  encountered  vacancy  ;  and,  alarmed,  she  retired.  As  she 
quitted  the  room,  however,  she  looked  back,  and  there  still  sat 
the  figure.  Not  being  a  believer  in  what  is  called  the  "  super- 
natural," Miss  N  resolved  to  overcome  her  apprehensions, 


THE  WIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


and  return  into  the  room,  which  she  did,  and  saw  the  figure  as 
before.  For  the  space  of  fully  half  an  hour  she  went  in  and 
out  of  the  room  in  this  manner,  before  it  disappeared.  She 
did  not  see  it  vanish,  but  the  fifth  time  she  returned,  it  was  gone. 

Dr.  Paterson  vouches  for  the  truth  of  this  story,  and  no  doubt 
of  its  being  a  mere  illusion  occurs  to  him,  though  the  lady  had 
never  before  or  since,  as  she  assured  him,  been  troubled  with 
the  malady.  It  seems  to  me  much  more  likely  that,  when  the 
storm  came  on,  the  thoughts  of  the  old  man  would  be  intensely 
drawn  homeward  :  he  would  naturally  wish  himself  in  his  com- 
fortable arm-chair,  and,  knowing  his  young  daughter  to  be 
alone,  he  would  inevitably  feel  some  anxiety  about  her  too 
There  was  a  mutual  projection  of  their  spirits  toward  each 
other ;  and  the  one  that  was  most  easily  freed  from  its  bonds, 
was  seen  where  in  the  spirit  it  actually  was  ;  for,  as  I  have  said 
above,  a  spirit  out  of  the  flesh,  to  whom  space  is  annihilated, 
must  be  where  its  thoughts  and  affections  are,  for  its  thoughts 
and  affections  are  itself. 

I  observe  that  Sir  David  Brewster  and  others,  who  have 
written  on  this  subject,  and  who  represent  all  these  phenomena 
as  images  projected  on  the  retina  from  the  brain,  dwell  much 
on  the  fact  that  they  are  seen  alike,  whether  the  eye  be  closed 
or  open.  There  are,  however,  two  answers  to  be  made  to  this 
argument :  first,  that  even  if  it  were  so,  the  proof  would  not  be 
decisive,  since  it  is  generally  with  closed  eyes  that  somnambulic 
persons  see,  whether  natural  somnambules  or  magnetic  patients ; 
and,  secondly,  I  find  in  some  instances,  which  appear  to  me  to 
be  genuine  cases  of  an  objective  appearance,  that  where  the 
experiment  has  been  tried,  the  figure  is  not  seen  when  the  eyes 
are  closed. 

The  author  of  a  work  entitled  "An  Inquiry  into  the  Nature 
of  Ghosts,"  who  adopts  the  illusion  theory,  relates  the  following 
story,  as  one  he  can  vouch  for,  though  not  permitted  to  give 
the  names  of  the  parties  : — 

u  Miss  ,  at  the  age  of  seven  years,  being  in  a  field  not 

far  from  her  father's  house,  in  the  parish  of  Kirklinton,  in  Cum- 
berland, saw  what  she  thought  was  her  father  in  the  field,  at  a 


DOPPELGANGERS  AND  SELF-SEEING. 


167 


time  that  he  was  in  bed,  from  which  lie  had  not  been  removed 
for  a  considerable  period.  There  were  in  the  field  also,  at  the 
same  moment,  George  Little,  and  John,  his  fellow-servant.  One 
of  these  cried  out,  4  Go  to  your  father,  miss  V  She  turned 
round,  and  the  figure  had  disappeared.  On  returning  home,  she 
said,  'Where  is  my  father  V  The  mother  answered,  'In  bed, 
to  be  sure,  child  V  —  out  of  which  he  had  not  been." 

I  quote  this  case,  because  the  figure  was  seen  by  two  per- 
sons. I  could  mention  several  similar  instances,  but  when  only 
seen  by  one,  they  are,  of  course,  open  to  another  explanation. 

Goethe  (whose  family,  by-the-way,  were  ghost-seers)  relates 
that  as  he  was  once  in  an  uneasy  state  of  mind,  riding  along  the 
footpath  toward  Drusenheim,  he  saw,  "  not  with  the  eyes  of  his 
body,  but  with  those  of  his  spirit,"  himself  on  horseback  coming 
toward  him,  in  a  dress  that  he  then  did  not  possess.  It  was 
gray,  and  trimmed  with  gold.  The  figure  disappeared ;  but 
eight  years  afterward  he  found  himself,  quite  accidentally,  on 
that  spot,  on  horseback,  and  in  precisely  that  attire.  This 
seems  to  have  been  a  case  of  second-sight. 

The  story  of  Byron's  being  seen  in  London  when  he  was  ly- 
ing in  a  fever  at  Patras,  is  well  known ;  but  may  possibly  have 
arisen  from  some  extraordinary  personal  resemblance,  though 
so  firm  was  the  conviction  of  its  being  his  actual  self,  that  a  bet 
of  a  hundred  guineas  was  offered  on  it. 

Some  time  ago,  the  "  Dublin  University  Magazine"  related 
a  case  —  I  know  not  on  what  authority  —  as  having  occurred  at 
Rome,  to  the  effect  that  a  gentleman  had,  one  night  on  going 
home  to  his  lodging,  thrown  his  servant  into  great  amazement, 
the  man  exclaiming,  "  Good  Lord,  sir,  you  came  home  before  !" 
He  declared  that  he  had  let  his  master  into  the  house,  attended 
him  up  stairs,  and,  I.  think,  undressed  J?im,  and  seen  him  get 
into  bed.  When  they  went  to  the  room,  they  found  no  clothes ; 
but  the  bed  appeared  to  have  been  lain  in,  and  there  was  a 
strange  mark  upon  the  ceiling,  as  if  from  the  passage  of  an 
electrical  fluid.  The  only  thing  the  young  man  could  remem- 
ber, whereby  to  account  for  this  extraordinary  circumstance, 
was,  that  while  abroad,  and  in  company,  he  had  been  overcome 


168 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


with  ennui,  fallen  into  a  deep  revery,  and  had  for  a  time  for- 
gotten that  he  was  not  at  home. 

When  I  read  this  story,  though  I  have  learned  from  experi- 
ence to  be  very  cautious  how  I  pronounce  that  impossible 
which  I  know  nothing  about,  I  confess  it  somewhat  exceeded 
my  receptive  capacity,  but  I  have  since  heard  of  a  similar  in- 
stance, so  well  authenticated,  that  my  incredulity  is  shaken. 

Dr.  Kerner  relates  that  a  canon  of  a  catholic  cathedral,  of 
somewhat  dissipated  habits,  on  coming  home  one  evening,  saw 
a  light  in  his  bedroom.  "When  the  maid  opened  the  door,  she 
started  back  with  surprise,  while  he  inquired  why  she  had  left 
a  candle  burning  up  stairs ;  upon  which  she  declared  that  he 
had  come  home  just  before,  and  gone  to  his  room,  and  she  had 
been  wondering  at  his  unusual  silence.  On  ascending  to  his 
chamber,  he  saw  himself  sitting  in  the  arm-chair.  The  figure 
rose,  passed  him,  and  went  out  at  the  room-door.  He  was  ex- 
tremely alarmed,  expecting  his  death  was  at  hand.  He,  how- 
ever, lived  many  years  afterward,  but  the  influence  on  his  moral 
character  was  very  beneficial. 

Not  long  since,  a  professor,  I  think  of  theology,  at  a  college 
at  Berlin,  addressed  his  class,  saying,  that,  instead  of  his  usual 
lecture,  he  should  relate  to  them  a  circumstance  which,  the  pre- 
ceding evening,  had  occurred  to  himself,  believing  the  effects 
would  be  no  less  salutary. 

He  then  told  them  that,  as  he  was  going  home  the  last  even- 
ing, he  had  seen  his  own  imago,  or  double,  on  the  other  side  of 
the  street. .  He  looked  away,  and  tried  to  avoid  it,  but,  finding 
it  still  accompanied  him,  he  took  a  short  cut  home,  in  hopes  of 
getting  rid  of  it,  wherein  he  succeeded,  till  he  came  opposite 
his  own  house,  when  he  saw  it  at  the  door. 

It  rang,  the  maid  opened,  it  entered,  she  handed  it  a  candle, 
and,  as  the  professor  stood  in  amazement,  on  the  other  side  of 
the  street,  he  saw  the  light  passing  the  windows,  as  it  wound 
its  way  up  to  his  own  chamber.  He  then  crossed  over  and 
rang  ;  the  servant  was  naturally  dreadfully  alarmed  on  seeing 
him,  but,  without  waiting  to  explain,  he  ascended  the  stairs. 
Just  as  he  reached  his  own  chamber,  he  heard  a  loud  crash, 


DOPPELG ANGERS  AND  SELF-SEEING.  109 


and,  on  opening  the  door,  they  found  no  one  there,  but  the 
ceiling  had  fallen  in,  and  his  life  was  thus  saved.  The  servant 
corroborated  this  statement  to  the  students ;  and  a  minister,  now- 
attached  to  one  of  the  Scotch  churches,  was  present  when  the 
professor  told  his  tale.  Without  admitting  the  doctrine  of  pro- 
tecting spirits,  it  is  difficult  to  account  for  these  latter  circum- 
stances. 

A  very  interesting  case  of  an  apparent  friendly  intervention 

occurred  to  the  celebrated  Dr.  A  T  ,  of  Edinburgh. 

He  was  sitting  up  late  one  night,  reading  in  his  study,  when  he 
heard  a  foot  in  the  passage,  and  knowing  the  family  were,  or 
ought  to  be,  all  in  bed,  he  rose  and  looked  out  to  ascertain  who 
it  was,  but,  seeing  nobody,  he  sat  down  again.  Presently,  the 
sound  recurred,  and  he  was  sure  there  was  somebody,  though 
he  could  not  see  him.  The  foot,  however,  evidently  ascended 
the  stairs,  and  he  followed  it,  till  it  led  him  to  the  nursery-door, 
which  he  opened,  and  found  the  furniture  was  on  fire ;  and  thus, 
but  for  this  kind  office  of  his  good  angel,  his  children  would 
have  been  burned  in  their  beds. 

The  most  extraordinary  history  of  this  sort,  however,  with 
which  I  am  acquainted,  is  the  following,  the  facts  of  which  are 
perfectly  authentic :  — 

Some  seventy  or  eighty  years  since,  the  apprentice,  or  as- 
sistant, of  a  respectable  surgeon  in  Glasgow,  was  known  to 
have  had  an  illicit  connection  with  a  servant-girl,  who  some- 
what suddenly  disappeared.  No  suspicion,  however,  seems  to 
have  been  entertained  of  foul  play.  It  appears  rather  to  have 
been  supposed  that  she  had  retired  for  the  purpose  of  being 
confined,  and,  consequently,  no  inquiries  were  made  about  her. 

Glasgow  was,  at  that  period,  a  very  different  place  to  what 
it  is  at  present,  in  more  respects  than  one ;  and,  among  its 
peculiarities,  was  the  extraordinary  strictness  with  which  the 
observance  of  the  sabbath  was  enforced,  insomuch,  that  nobody 
was  permitted  to  show  themselves  in  the  streets  or  public  walks 
during  the  hours  dedicated  to  the  church  services  ;  and  there 
were  actually  inspectors  appointed  to  see  that  this  regulation 
was  observed,  and  to  take  down  the  names  of  defaulters. 


170 


THE  NIGHT -  SIDE  OF  NATUKE. 


At  one  extremity  of  the  city,  there  is  some  open  ground,  of 
rather  considerable  extent,  on  the  north  side  of  the  river,  called 
"  The  Green,"  where  people  sometimes  resort  for  air  and  ex- 
ercise ;  and  where  lovers  not  unfrequently  retire  to  enjoy  as 
much  solitude  as  the  proximity  to  so  large  a  town  can  afford. 

One  Sunday  morning,  the  inspectors  of  public  piety  above 
alluded  to  having  traversed  the  city,  and  extended  their  per- 
quisitions as  far  as  the  lower  extremity  of  the  Green,  where  it 
was  bounded  by  a  wall,  observed  a  young  man  lying  on  the 
grass,  whom  they  immediately  recognised  to  be  the  surgeon's 
assistant.  They,  of  course,  inquired  why  he  was  not  at  church, 
and  proceeded  to  register  his  name  in  their  books,  but,  instead 
of  attempting  to  make  any  excuse  for  his  offence,  he  only  rose 
from  the  ground,  saying,  "  I  am  a  miserable  man  ;  look  in  the 
water !"  He  then  immediately  crossed  a  stile,  which  divided 
the  wall,  and  led  to  a  path  extending  along  the  side  of  the  river 
toward  the  Rutherglen  road.  They  saw  him  cross  the  stile, 
but,  not  comprehending  the  significance  of  his  words,  instead. 
*  of  observing  him  further,  they  naturally  directed  their  attention 
to  the  water,  where  they  presently  perceived  the  body  of  a 
woman.  Having  with  some  difficulty  dragged  it  ashore,  they 
immediately  proceeded  to  carry  it  into  the  town,  assisted  by 
several  other  persons,  who  by  this  time  had  joined  them.  It  was 
now  about  one  o'clock,  and,  as  they  passed  through  the  streets, 
they  were  obstructed  by  the  congregation  that  was  issuing  from 
one  of  the  principal  places  of  worship  ;  and,  as  they  stood  up 
for  a  moment,  to  let  them  pass,  they  saw  the  surgeon's  assistant 
issue  from  the  church  door.  As  it  was  quite  possible  for  him  to 
have  gone  round  some  other  way,  and  got  there  before  them, 
they  were  not  much  surprised.  He  did  not  approach  them, 
but  mingled  with  the  crowd,  while  they  proceeded  on  their  way. 

On  examination,  the  woman  proved  to  be  the  missing  ser- 
vant-girl. She  was  pregnant,  and  had  evidently  been  murdered 
with  a  surgeon's  instrument,  which  was  found  entangled  among 
her  clothes.  Upon  this,  in  consequence  of  his  known  connec- 
tion with  her,  and  his  implied  self-accusation  to  the  inspectors, 
the  young  man  was  apprehended  on  suspicion  of  being  the 


DOPPELG ANGERS  AND  SELF-SEEING. 


171 


guilty  party,  and  tried  upon  the  circuit.  He  was  the  last  per- 
son seen  in  her  company,  immediately  previous  to  her  disap- 
pearance ;  and  there  was,  altogether,  such  strong  presumptive 
evidence  against  him,  as  corroborated  by  what  occurred  on  the 
green  would  have  justified  a  verdict  of  guilty.  But,  strange  to 
say,  this  last  most  important  item  in  the  evidence  failed,  and  he 
established  an  incontrovertible  alibi  ;  it  being  proved,  beyond 
all  possibility  of  doubt,  that  he  had  been  in  church  from  the 
beginning  of  the  service  to  the  end  of  it.  He  was,  therefore, 
acquitted  ;  while  the  public  were  left  in  the  greatest  perplex- 
ity, to  account  as  they  could  for  this  extraordinary  discrepancy. 
The  young  man  was  well  known  to  the  inspectors,  and  it  was  in 
broad  daylight  that  they  had  met  him  and  placed  his  name  in 
their  books.  Neither,  it  must  be  remembered,  were  they  seek- 
ing for  him,  nor  thinking  of  him,  nor  of  the  woman,  about  whom 
there  existed  neither  curiosity  nor  suspicion.  Least  of  all,  would 
they  have  sought  her  where  she  was,  but  for  the  hint  given  to 
them. 

The  interest  excited,  at  the  time,  was  very  great ;  but  no  nat- 
ural explanation  of  the  mystery  has  ever  been  suggested. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

APPARITIONS. 

The  number  of  stories  on  record,  which  seem  to  support  the 
views  I  have  suggested  in  my  last  chapter,  is,  I  fancy,  little  sus- 
pected by  people  in  general ;  and  still  less  is  it  imagined  that 
similar  occurrences  are  yet  frequently  taking  place.  I  had,  in- 
deed, myself  no  idea  of  either  one  circumstance  or  the  other, 
till  my  attention  being  accidentally  turned  in  this  direction, 
I  was  led  into  inquiries,  the  result  of  which  has  extremely  sur- 
prised me.  I  do  not  mean  to  imply  that  all  my  acquaintance 
are  ghost-seers,  or  that  these  things  happen  every  day ;  but  the 


172 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


amount  of  what  I  do  mean,  is  this  :  first,  that  besides  the  nu- 
merous instances  of  such  phenomena  alluded  to  in  history, 
which  have  been  treated  as  fables  by  those  who  profess  to  be- 
lieve the  rest  of  the  narratives,  though  the  whole  rests  upon  the 
same  foundation,  that  is,  tradition  and  hearsay ;  besides  these, 
there  exists  in  one  form  or  another,  hundreds  and  hundreds  of 
recorded  cases,  in  all  countries,  and  in  all  languages,  exhibiting 
that  degree  of  similarity  which  mark  them  as  belonging  to  a 
class  of  facts,  many  of  these  being  of  a  nature  which  seems  to 
preclude  the  possibility  of  bringing  them  under  the  theory  of 
spectral  illusions  ;  and,  secondly,  that  I  scarcely  meet  any  one 
man  or  woman,  who,  if  I  can  induce  them  to  believe  I  will  not 
publish  their  names,  and  am  not  going  to  laugh  at  them,  is  not 
prepared  to  tell  me  of  some  occurrence  of  the  sort,  as  having 
happened  to  themselves,  their  family,  or  their  friends.  I  admit 
that  in  many  instances  they  terminate  their  narration,  by  saying, 
that  they  think  it  must  have  been  an  illusion,  because  they  can 
not  bring  themselves  to  believe  in  ghosts  ;  not  unfrequently  ad- 
ding, that  they  wish  to  think  so  ;  since  to  think  otherwise  would 
make  them  uncomfortable.  1  confess,  however,  that  this  seems 
to  me  a  very  unwise,  as  well  as  a  very  unsafe  way  of  treating 
the  matter.  Believing  the  appearance  to  be  an  illusion,  because 
they  can  not  bring  themselves  to  believe  in  ghosts,  simply  amounts  # 
to* saying,  "  I  don't  believe,  because  I  don't  believe ;"  and  is  an 
argument  of  no  effect,  except  to  invalidate  their  capacity  for 
judging  the  question,  at  all ;  but  the  second  reason  for  not  be- 
lieving, namely,  that  they  do  not  wish  to  do  so,  has  not  only  the 
same  disadvantage,  but  is  liable  to  much  more  serious  objec- 
tions ;  for  it  is  our  duty  to  ascertain  the  truth  in  an  affair  that 
concerns  every  soul  of  us  so  deeply  ;  and  to  shrink  from  look- 
ing at  it,  lest  it  should  disclose  something  we  do  not  like,  is  an 
expedient  as  childish  as  it  is  desperate. 

In  reviewing  my  late  novel  of  "  Lilly  Dawson,"  where  I 
announce  the  present  work,  I  observe  that  while  some  of  the 
reviewers  scout  the  very  idea  of  anybody's  believing  in  ghosts, 
others,  less  rash,  while  they  admit  that  it  is  a  subject  we  know 
nothing  about,  object  to  further  investigation,  on  account  of  the 


APPARITIONS. 


173 


terrors  and  uncomfortable  feelings  that  will  be  engendered. 
Now,  certainly,  if  it  were  a  matter  in  which  we  had  no  per- 
sonal concern,  and  which  belonged  merely  to  the  region  of 
speculative  curiosity,  everybody  would  be  perfectly  justified  in 
following  their  inclinations  with  regard  to  it ;  there  would  be 
no  reason  for  frightening  themselves,  if  they  did  not  like  it; 
but,  since  it  is  perfectly  certain  that  the  fate  of  these  poor 
ghosts,  be  what  it  may,  will  be  ours  some  day  —  perhaps  before 
another  year  or  another  week  has  passed  over  our  heads — to 
shut  our  eyes  to  the  truth,  because  it  may  perchance  occasion 
us  some  uncomfortable  feelings,  is  surely  a  strange  mixture  of 
contemptible  cowardice  and  daring  temerity.  If  it  be  true 
that,  by  some  law  of  nature,  departed  souls  occasionally  revisit 
the  earth,  we  may  be  quite  certain  that  it  was  intended  we 
should  know  it,  and  that  the  law  is  to  some  good  end ;  for  no 
law  of  God  can  be  purposeless  or  mischievous ;  and  is  it  con- 
ceivable that  we  should  say  we  will  not  know  it,  because  it  is 
disagreeable  to  us  1  Is  not  this  very  like  saying,  "  Let  us  eat, 
drink,  and  be  merry,  for  to-morrow  we  die  !"  and  yet  refusing 
to  inquire  what  is  to  become  of  us  when  we  do  die  1  refusing 
to  avail  ourselves  of  that  demonstrative  proof  which  God  has 
mercifully  placed  within  our  reach  ?  And,  with  all  this  obsti- 
nacy, people  do  not  get  rid  of  the  apprehension  ;  they  go  on 
struggling  against  it  and  keeping  it  down  by  argument  and 
reason  ;  but  there  are  very  few  persons  indeed,  men  or  women, 
who,  when  placed  in  a  situation  calculated  to  suggest  the  idea, 
do  not  feel  the  intuitive  conviction  striving  within  them.  In 
the  ordinary  circumstances  of  life,  nobody  suffers  from  this 
terror ;  in  the  extraordinary  ones,  I  find  the  professed  disbe- 
lievers not  much  better  off  than  the  believers.  Not  long  ago,  I 
heard  a  lady  expressing  the  great  alarm  she  should  have  felt, 
had  she  been  exposed  to  spend  a  whole  night  on  Ben  Lomond, 
as  Margaret  Fuller,  the  American  authoress,  did  lately  ;  "  for," 
said  she,  "  though  I  don't  believe  in  ghosts,  I  should  have  been 
dreadfully  afraid  of  seeing  one  then  !" 

Moreover,  though  I  do  not  suppose  that  man,  in  his  normal 
state,  could  ever  encounter  an  incorporeal  spirit  without  con- 


174  THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


siderable  awe,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  extreme  terror  the 
idea  inspires  arises  from  bad  training.  The  ignorant  frighten 
children  with  ghosts,  and  the  better  educated  assure  them  there 
is  no  such  thing.  Our  understanding  may  believe  the  latter, 
but  our  instincts  believe  the  former ;  so  that,  out  of  this  educa- 
tion, we  retain  the  terror,  and  just  belief  enough  to  make  it 
very  troublesome  whenever  we  are  placed  in  circumstances 
that  awaken  it.  Now,  perhaps,  if  the  thing  were  differently 
managed,  the  result  might  be  different.  Suppose  the  subject 
were  duly  investigated,  and  it  were  ascertained  that  the  views 
which  I  and  many  others  are  disposed  to  entertain  with  regard 
to  it  are  correct,  —  and  suppose,  then,  children  were  calmly 
told  that  it  is  not  impossible  but  that,  on  some  occasion,  they 
may  see  a  departed  friend  again  —  that  the  laws  of  nature, 
established  by  an  allwise  Providence,  admit  of  the  dead  some- 
times revisiting  the  earth,  doubtless  for  the  benevolent  purpose 
of  keeping  alive  in  us  our  faith  in  a  future  state  —  that  death 
is  merely  a  transition  to  another  life,  which  it  depends  on  our- 
selves to  make  happy  or  otherwise  —  and  that  while  those  spir- 
its which  appear  bright  and  blessed  may  well  be  objects  of 
our  envy,  the  others  should  excite  only  our  intense  compassion  : 
I  am  persuaded  that  a  child  so  educated  would  feel  no  terror 
at  the  sight  of  an  apparition,  more  especially  as  there  very 
rarely  appears  to  be  anything  terrific  in  the  aspect  of  these 
forms  ;  they  generally  come  in  their  "  habits  as  they  lived,"  and 
appear  so  much  like  the  living  person  in  the  flesh,  that  where 
they  are  not  known  to  be  already  dead,  they  are  frequently 
mistaken  for  them.  There  are  exceptions  to  this  rule, — but 
the  forms  in  themselves  rarely  exhibit  anything  to  create  alarm. 

As  a  proof  that  a  child  would  not  naturally  be  terrified  at  the 
sight  of  an  apparition,  I  will  adduce  the  following  instance,  the 
authenticity  of  which  I  can  vouch  for  :  -— 

A  lady  with  her  child  embarked  on  board  a  vessel  at  Ja- 
maica, for  the  purpose  of  visiting  her  friends  in  England,  leav- 
ing her  husband  behind  her  quite  well.  It  was  a  sailing  packet; 
and  they  had  been  some  time  at  sea,  when  one  evening,  while 
the  child  was  kneeling  before  her  saying  his  prayers  previous 


APPARITIONS.  175 


to  going  to  rest,  he  suddenly  said  :  "  Mamma,  papa  !"  "  Non- 
sense, my  dear  !"  the  mother  answered,  "  you  know  your  papa 
is  not  here!" — "He  is  indeed,  mamma,"  returned  the  child, 
he  is  looking  at  us  now."  Nor  could  she  convince  him  to  the 
contrary.  When  she  went  on  deck,  she  mentioned  the  circum- 
stance to  the  captain,  who  thought  it  so  strange,  that  he  said  he 
would  note  down  the  date  of  the  occurrence.  The  lady  begged 
him  not  to  do  so,  saying  it  was  attaching  a  significance  to  it 
which  would  make  her  miserable.  He  did  it,  however ;  and, 
shortly  after  her  arrival  in  England,  she  learned  that  her  hus- 
band had  died  exactly  at  that  period. 

I  have  met  with  other  instances  in  which  children  have  seen 
apparitions  without  exhibiting  any  alarm  ;  and  in  the  case  of 
Fredericka  Hauffe,  the  infant  in  her  arms  was  frequently  ob- 
served to  point  smilingly  to  those  which  she  herself  said  she 
saw.  In  the  above  related  case,  we  find  a  valuable  example 
of  an  apparition  which  we  can  not  believe  to  have  been  a  mere 
subjective  phenomenon,  being  seen  by  one  person  and  not  by 
another.  The  receptivity  of  the  child  may  have  been  greater, 
or  the  rapport  between  it  and  its  father  stronger ;  but  this  oc- 
currence inevitably  leads  us  to  suggest,  how  often  our  departed 
friends  may  be  near  us,  and  we  not  see  them ! 

A  Mr.  B  ,  with  whom  I  am  acquainted,  informed  me 

that,  some  years  ago,  he  lost  two  children.  There  was  an  in- 
terval of  two  years  between  their  deaths ;  and  about  as  long  a 
period  had  elapsed  since  the  decease  of  the  second,  when  the 
circumstance  I  am  about  to  relate  took  place.  It  may  be  con- 
ceived that  at  that  distance  of  time,  however  vivid  the  impres- 
sion had  been  at  first,  it  had  considerably  faded  from  the  mind 
of  a  man  engaged  in  business ;  and  he  assures  me  that,  on  the 
night  this  event  occurred,  he  was  not  thinking  of  the  children 
at  all ;  he  was,  moreover,  perfectly  well,  and  had  neither  eaten 
nor  drank  anything  unusual,  nor  abstained  from  eating  or  drink- 
ing anything  to  which  he  was  accustomed.  He  was  therefore 
in  his  normal  state  ;  when  shortly  after  he  had  lain  down  in 
bed,  and  before  he  had  fallen  asleep,  he  heard  the  voice  of  one 
of  the  children  say  :  "  Papa  —  papa  !" 


176  THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 

"  Do  you  hear  that  V*  he  said  to  his  wife,  who  lay  beside 
him  —  "  I  hear  Archy  calling  me,  as  plain  as  ever  I  heard  him 
in  my  life  !" 

"  Nonsense  !"  returned  the  lady  ;  "  you  are  fancying  it." 

But  presently  he  again  heard  "Papa,  papa!"  and  now  both 
voices  spoke.  Upon  which  —  exclaiming,  "  I  can  stand  this  no 
longer" — he  started  up,  and,  drawing  back  the  curtains,  saw 
both  children  in  their  night  dresses,  standing  near  the  bed.  He 
immediately  jumped  out ;  whereupon  they  retreated  slowly, 
and  with  their  faces  toward  him,  to  the  window,  where  they 
disappeared.  He  says  that  the  circumstance  made  a  great 
impression  upon  him  at  the  time ;  and,  indeed,  that  it  was  one 
that  could  never  be  effaced ;  but  he  did  not  know  what  to  think 
of  it,  not  believing  in  ghosts,  and  therefore  concluded  it  must 
have  been  some  extraordinary  spectral  illusion,  especially  as 
his  wife  heard  nothing.  It  may  have  been  so;  but  that  circum- 
stance by  no  means  proves  it. 

From  these  varying  degrees  of  susceptibility,  or  affinity,  there 
seems  to  arise  another  Consequence,  namely,  that  more  than  one 
person  may  see  the  same  object,  and  yet  see  it  differently,  and 
I  mention  this  particularly,  because  it  is  one  of  the  objections 
that  unreflecting  persons  make  to  phenomena  of  this  kind,  sec- 
ond sight  especially.  In  the  remarkable  instance  which  is  re- 
corded to  have  occurred  at  Ripley,  in  the  year  1812,  to  which 
I  shall  allude  more  particularly  in  a  future  chapter,  much  stress 
was  laid  on  the  fact,  that  the  first  seer  said,  "  Look  at  those 
beasts  !"  While  the  second  answered,  they  were  "not  beasts, 
but  men."  In  a  former  chapter,  I  mentioned  the  case  of  a  lady, 
on  board  a  ship,  seeing  and  feeling  a  sort  of  blue  cloud  hanging 
over  her,  which  afterward,  as  it  retired,  assumed  a  human 
form,  though  still  appearing  a  vapory  substance.  Now,  possi- 
bly, had  her  receptivity,  or  the  rapport,"been  greater,  she  might 
have  seen  the  distinct  image  of  her  dying  friend.  I  have  met 
with  several  instances  of  these  cloudy  figures  being  seen,  as  if 
the  spirit  had  built  itself  up  a  form  of  atmospheric  air ;  and  it 
is  remarkable,  that  when  other  persons  perceived  the  appari- 
tions that  frequented  the  Seeress  of  Prevorst,  some  saw  those 


APPARITIONS. 


177 


as  cloudy  forms,  which  she  saw  distinctly  attired  in  the  costume 
they  wore  when  alive ;  and  thus,  on  some  occasions,  apparitions 
are  represented  as  being  transparent,  while  on  others  they  have 
not  been  distinguishable  from  the  real  corporeal  body.  All 
these  discrepancies,  and  others,  to  be  hereafter  alluded  to,  are 
doubtless  only  absurd  to  our  ignorance ;  they  are  the  results  of 
physical  laws,  as  absolute,  though  not  so  easily  ascertained,  as 
those  by  which  the  most  ordinary  phenomena  around  us  are 
found  explicable. 

"With  respect  to  these  cloudy  forms,  I  have  met  with  four  in- 
stances lately,  two  occurring  to  ladies,  and  two  to  gentlemen  ; 
the  one  a  minister,  and  the  other  a  man  engaged  in  business ; 
and  although  I  am  quite  aware  that  these  cases  are  not  easily 
to  be  distinguished  from  those  of  spectral  illusion,  yet  I  do  not 
think  them  so  myself ;  and  as  they  occurred  to  persons  in  their 
normal  state  of  health,  who  never  before  or  since  experienced 
anything  of  the  kind,  and  who  could  find  nothing  in  their  own 
circumstances  to  account  for  its  happening  then,  I  shall  mention 
them.  In  the  instances  of  the  gentlemen  and  one  of  the  ladies, 
they  were  suddenly  awakened,  they  could  not  tell  by  what/and 
perceived  bending  over  them  a  cloudy  form,  which  immediately 
retreated  slowly  to  the  other  end  of  the  room,  and  disappeared. 
In  the  fourth  case,  which  occurred  to  an  intimate  friend  of  my 
own,  she  had  not  been  asleep  ;  but  having  been  the  last  per- 
son up  in  the  house,  had  just  stepped  into  the  bed,  where  her 
sister  had  already  been  some  time  asleep.  She  was  perfectly 
awake,  when  her  attention  was  attracted  by  hearing  the  clink 
of  glass,  and,  on  looking  up,  she  saw  a  figure  standing  on  the 
hearth,  which  was  exactly  opposite  her  side  of  the  bed,  and  as 
there  was  water  and  a  tumbler  there,  she  concluded  that  her 
sister  had  stepped  out  at  the  bottom,  unperceived  by  her,  and 
was  drinking.  While  she  was  carelessly  observing  the  figure, 
it  moved  toward  the  bed,  and  laid  a  heavy  hand  upon  her, 
pressing  her  arm  in  a  manner  that  gave  her  pain.  "  Oh,  Maria, 
don't !"  she  exclaimed ;  but  as  the  form  retreated,  and  she  los1 
sight  of  it,  a  strange  feeling  crept  over  her,  and  she  stretched 
out  her  hand  to  ascertain  if  her  sister  was  beside  her.  She  was, 
8* 


178 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


and  asleep ;  but  this  movement  awoke  her,  and  she  found  the 
other  now  in  considerable  agitation.  She,  of  course,  tried  to 
persuade  her  that  it  was  a  dream,  or  night-mare,  as  did  the 
family  the  next  day ;  but  she  was  quite  clear  in  her  mind  at  the 
time,  as  she  then  assured  me,  that  it  was  neither  one  nor  the 
other  j  though  now,  at  the  distance  of  a  year  from  the  occur- 
rence, she  is  very  desirous  of  putting  that  construction  upon  it. 
As  somebody  will  be  ready  to  suggest  that  this  was  a  freak 
played  by  one  of  the  family,  I  can  only  answer  that  that  is  an 
explanation  that  no  one  who  is  acquainted  with  all  the  circum- 
stances, could  admit ;  added  to  which,  the  figure  did  not  disap- 
pear in  the  direction  of  the  door,  but  in  quite  an  opposite  one. 

A  very  singular  thing  happened  to  the  accomplished  author- 
ess of"  Letters  from  the  Baltic,"  on  which  my  readers  may  put 
what  interpretation  they  please,  but  I  give  it  here  as  a  pendant 
to  the  last  story.  The  night  before  she  left  Petersburgh  she 
passed  in  the  house  of  a  friend.  The  room  appropriated  to  her 
use  was  a  large  dining-room,  in  which  a  temporary  bed  was 
placed,  and  a  folding  screen  was  so  arranged  as  to  give  an'  air 
of  comfort  to  the  nook  where  the  bed  stood.  She  went  to  bed, 
and  to  sleep,  and  no  one  who  knows  her  can  suspect  her  of  see- 
ing spectral  illusions,  or  being  incapable  of  distinguishing  her 
own  condition  when  she  saw  anything  whatever.  As  she  was 
to  commence  her  journey  on  the  following  day,  she  had  given 
orders  to  be  called  at  an  early  hour,  and,  accordingly,  she  found 
herself  awakened  toward  morning  by  an  old  woman  in  a  com- 
plete Russian  costume,  who  looked  at  her,  nodding  and  smiling, 
and  intimating,  as  she  supposed,  that  it  was  time  to  rise.  Feel- 
ing, however,  very  sleepy,  and  very  unwilling  to  do  so,  she 
took  her  watch  from  behind  her  pillow,  and,  looking  at  it,  per- 
ceived that  it  was  only  four  o'clock.  As,  from  the  costume  of 
the  old  woman,  she  knew  her  to  be  a  Russian,  and  therefore 
not  likely  to  understand  any  language  she  could  speak,  she 
shook  her  head,  and  pointed  to  the  watch,  giving  her  to  under- 
stand that  it  was  too  early.  The  woman  looked  at  her,  and 
nodded,  and  then  retreated,  while  the  traveller  lay  down  again 
and  soon  fell  asleep.  By-and-by,  she  was  awakened  by  a  knock 


APPARITIONS. 


179 


at  the  door  and  the  voice  of  the  maid  whom  she  had  desired  to 
call  her.  She  bade  her  come  in,  but,  the  door  being  lacked  on 
the  inside,  she  had  to  get  out  of  bed  to  admit  her.  It  now- 
occurred  to  her  to  wonder  how  the  old  woman  had  entered,  but, 
taking  it  for  granted  that  there  was  some  other  mode  of  ingress 
she  did  not  trouble  herself  about  it,  but  dressed,  and  descended 
to  breakfast.  Of  course,  the  inquiry  usually  addressed  to  a 
stranger  was  made  —  they  hoped  she  had  slept  well!  "Per- 
fectly," she  said,  "  only  that  one  of  their  good  people  had  been 
somewhat  over  anxious  to  get  her  up  in  the  morning ;"  and  she 
then  mentioned  the  old  woman's  visit,  but  to  her  surprise,  they 
declared  they  had  no  such  person  in  the  family.  "  It  must  have 
been  some  old  nurse,  or  laundress,  or  something  of  that  sort," 
she  suggested.  "  Impossible  !"  they  answered  ;  "  you  must 
have  dreamed  the  whole  thing ;  we  have  no  old  woman  in  the 
house ;  nobody  wearing  that  costume  ;  and  nobody  could  have 
got  in,  since  the  door  must  have  been  fastened  long  after  that!" 
And  these  assertions  the  servants  fully  confirmed ;  added  to 
which,  I  should  observe,  that  the  house,  like  foreign  houses  in 
general,  consisted  of  a  flat,  or  floor,  shut  in  by  a  door,  which 
separated  it  entirely  from  the  rest  of  the  building,  and,  being 
high  up  from  the  street,  nobody  could  even  have  gained  access 
by  a  window.  The  lady  now  beginning  to  get  somewhat  puz- 
zled, inquired  if  there  were  any  second  entrance  into  the  room  ; 
but,  to  her  surprise,  she  heard  there  was  not ;  and  she  then 
mentioned  that  she  had  locked  the  door  on  going  to  bed,  and 
had  found  it  locked  in  the  morning.  The  thing  has  ever 
remained  utterly  inexplicable,  and  the  family,  who  were  much 
more  amazed  by  it  than  she  was,  would  willingly  believe  it 
to  have  been  a  dream  ;  but,  whatever  the  interpretation  of  it 
may  be,  she  feels  quite  certain  that  that  is  not  the  true  one. 

I  make  no  comments  on  the  above  case,  though  a  very  inex- 
plicable one  ;  and  1  scarcely  know  whether  to  mention  any  of 
those  well-established  tales,  which  appear  to  be  certainly  as  sat- 
isfactorily attested  as  any  circumstance  which  is  usually  taken 
simply  on  report.  I  allude  particularly  to  the  stories  of  Gen- 
eral Wynyard ;  Lord  Tyrone  and  Lady  Beresford ;  the  case 


180 


THE  NIGHT -  SIDE  OF 


NATURE, 


which  took  place  at  Havant,  in  Hampshire,  and  which  is  re- 
lated in  a  letter  from  Mr.  Caswell  the  mathematician  to  Dr. 
Bentley ;  that  which  occurred  in  Cornwall,  as  narrated  by  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Ruddle,  one  of  the  prebendaries  of  Exeter,  whose 
assistance  and  advice  were  asked,  and  who  himself  had  two 
interviews  with  the  spirit ;  and  many  others,  which  are  already 
published  in  different  works;  especially  in  a  little  book  entitled 
"Accredited  Ghost-Stories."  I  may,  however,  mention  that, 
with  respect  to  those  of  Lady  Beresford  and  General  Wynyard, 
the  families  of  the  parties  have  always  maintained  their  entire 
belief  in  the  circumstances;  as  do  the  family  of  Lady  Betty 
Cobb,  who  took  the  riband  from  Lady  Beresford's  arm,  after  she 
was  dead  —  she  having  always  worn  it  since  her  interview  with 
the  apparition,  in  order  to  conceal  the  mark  he  had  left  by 
touching  her. 

There  have  been  many  attempts  to  explain  away  the  story 
of  Lord  Littleton's  warning,  although  the  evidence  for  it  cer- 
tainly satisfied  the  family,  as  we  learn  from  Dr.  Johnson,  who 
said,  in  regard  to  it,  that  it  was  the  most  extraordinary  thing 
that  had  happened  in  his  day,  and  that  he  heard  it  from  the  lips 
of  Lord  Westcote,  the  uncle  of  Lord  Littleton. 

There  is  a  sequel,  however,  to  this  story,  which  is  extremely 
well  authenticated,  though  much  less  generally  known.  It  ap- 
pears that  Mr.  Miles  Peter  Andrews,  the  intimate  friend  of 
Lord  Littleton,  was  at  his  house,  at  Dartford,  when  Lord  L. 
died  at  Pitt-place,  Epsom,  thirty  miles  off.  Mr.  Andrews' 
house  was  full  of  company,  and  he  expected  Lord  Littleton, 
whom  he  had  left  in  his  usual  state  of  health,  to  join  him  the 
next  day,  which  was  Sunday. 

Mr.  Andrews  himself  feeling  rather  indisposed  on  the  Satur- 
day evening,  retired  early  to  bed,  and  requested  Mrs.  Pigou, 
one  of  his  guests,  to  do  the  honors  of  his  supper-table.  He 
admitted  (for  he  is  himself  the  authority  for  the  story)  that  he 
fell  into  a  feverish  sleep  on  going  to  bed,  but  was  awakened 
between  eleven  and  twelve  by  somebody  opening  his  curtains, 
which  proved  to  be  Lord  Littleton,  in  a  night-gown  and  cap, 
which  Mr.  Andrews  recognised.    Lord  Littleton  spoke,  saying 


APPARITIONS. 


181 


that  he  was  come  fo  tell  liim  all  was  over.  It  appears  that  Lonl 
Littleton  was  fond  of  practical  joking,  and  as  Mr.  Andrews  en- 
tertained no  doubt  whatever  of  his  visiter  being  Lord  Littleton 
himself,  in  the  body,  he  supposed  that  this  was  one  of  his  tricks  ; 
and,  stretching  his  arm  out  of  bed,  he  took  hold  of  bis  slippers, 
the  nearest  thing  he  could  get  at,  and  threw  them  at  him,  where- 
upon the  figure  retreated  to  a  dressing-room,  which  had  no  in- 
gress or  egress  except  through  the  bed-chamber.  Upon  this, 
Mr.  Andrews  jumped  out  of  bed  to  follow  him,  intending  to  chas- 
tise him  further,  but  he  could  find  nobody  in  either  of  the  rooms, 
although  the  door  was  locked  on  the  inside  ;  so  he  rang  his  bell, 
and  inquired  who  had  seen  Lord  Littleton.  Nobody  had  seen 
him;  but,  though  how  he  had  got  in  or  out  of  the  room  re- 
mained an  enigma,  Mr.  Andrews  asserted  that  he  was  certainly 
there  ;  and,  angry  at  the  supposed  trick,  he  ordered  that  they 
should  give  him  no  bed,  but  let  him  go  and  sleep  at  the  inn. 
Lord  Littleton,  however,  appeared  no  more,  and  Mr.  Andrews 
went  to  sleep,  not  entertaining  the  slightest  suspicion  that  he 
had  seen  an  apparition. 

It  happened  that,  on  the  following  morning,  Mrs.  Pigou  had 
occasion  to  go  at  an  early  hour  to  London,  and  great  was  her 
astonishment  to  learn  that  Lord  Littleton  had  died  on  the  pre- 
ceding night.  She  immediately  despatched  an  express  to  Dart- 
ford  with  the  news,  upon  the  receipt  of  which,  Mr.  Andrews, 
then  quite  well,  and  remembering  perfectly  all  that  had  hap- 
pened, swooned  away.  He  could  not  understand  it,  but  it  had 
a  most  serious  effect  upon  him,  and,  to  use  his  own  expression, 
he  was  not  his  own  man  again  for  three  years. 

There  are  various  authorities  for  this  story,  the  correctness 
of  which  is  vouched  for  by  some  members  of  Mrs.  Pigou's 
family,  with  whom  I  am  acquainted,  who  have  frequently  heard 
the  circumstances  detailed  by  herself,  and  who  assure  me  it  was 
always  believed  by  the  family.  I  really,  therefore,  do  not  see 
what  grounds  we  have  for  doubting  either  of  these  facts.  Lord 
Westcote,  on  whose  word  Dr.  Johnson  founded  his  belief  of 
Lord  Littleton's  warning,  was  a  man  of  strong  sense ;  and  that 
the  story  was  not  looked  upon  lightly  by  the  family,  is  proved 


182 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


by  the  fact  that  the  dowager  Lady  Littleton  had  a  picture — 
which  was  seen  by  Sir  Nathaniel  Wraxhall  in  her  house  in 
Portugal  street,  as  mentioned  in  his  memoirs — wherein  the 
event  was  commemorated.  His  lordship  is  in  bed  ;  the  dove 
appears  at  the  window  ;  and  a  female  figure  stands  at  the  foot  of 
the  couch,  announcing  to  the  unhappy  profligate  his  approach- 
ing dissolution.  That  he  mentioned  the  warning  to  his  valet, 
and  some  other  persons,  and  that  he  talked  of  jockeying  the 
ghost  by  surviving  the  time  named,  is  certain  ;  as  also  that  he 
died  with  his  watch  in  his  hand,  precisely  at  the  appointed 
period  !  Mr.  Andrews  says  that  he  was  subject  to  fits  of  stran- 
gulation, from  a  swelling  in  the  throat,  which  might  have  killed 
him  at  any  moment ;  but  his  decease  having  proceeded  from  a 
natural  and  obvious  cause,  does  not  interfere  one  way  or  the 
other  with  the  validity  of  the  prediction,  which  simply  foretold 
his  death  at  a  particular  period,  not  that  there  was  to  be  any- 
thing preternatural  in  the  manner  of  it. 

As  I  find  so  many  people  willing  to  believe  in  wraiths,  who 
can  not  believe  in  ghosts  —  that  is,  they  are  overpowered  by 
the  numerous  examples,  and  the  weight  of  evidence  for  the 
first  —  it  would  be  desirable  if  we  could  ascertain  whether  these 
wraiths  are  seen  before  the  death  occurs  or  after  it :  but,  though 
the  day  is  recorded,  and  seems  always  to  be  the  one  on  which 
the  death  took  place,  and  the  hour  about  the  same,  minutes  are 
not  sufficiently  observed  to  enable  us  to  answer  that  question. 
It  would  be  an  interesting  one,  because  the  argument  advanced 
by  those  who  believe  that  the  dead  never  are  seen,  is,  that  it  is 
the  strong  will  and  desire  of  the  expiring  person  which  enables 
him  so  to  act  on  the  nervous  system  of  his  distant  friend,  that 
the  imagination  of  the  latter  projects  the  form,  and  sees  it  as  if 
objectively.  By  imagination  I  do  not  simply  mean  to  convey 
the  common  notion  implied  by  that  much-abused  word,  which 
is  only  fancy,  but  the  constructive  imagination,  which  is  a  much 
higher  function,  and  which,  inasmuch  as  man  is  made  in  the 
likeness  of  God,  bears  a  distant  relation  to  that  sublime  power 
by  which  the  Creator  projects,  creates,  and  upholds,  his  uni- 
verse ;  while  the  far-working  of  the  departing  spirit  seems  to 


APPARITIONS.  183 

consist  in  the  strong  will  to  do,  reinforced  by  the  strong  faith 
that  it  can  be  done.  We  have  rarely  the  strong  will,  and  still 
more  rarely  the  strong  faith,  without  which  the  will  remains 
ineffective.    In  the  following  case,  which  is  perfectly  authentic, 

the  apparition  of  Major  R  was  seen  several  hours  after  his 

death  had  occurred. 

In  the  year  1785,  some  cadets  were  ordered  to  proceed  from 
Madras  to  join  their  regiments  up  the  country.  A  considerable 
part  of  the  journey  was  to  be  made  in  a  barge,  and  they  were 

under  the  conduct  of  a  senior  officer,  Major  R  .    In  order 

to  relieve  the  monotony  of  the  voyage,  this  gentleman  proposed, 
one  day,  that  they  should  make  a  shooting  excursion  inland, 
and  walk  round  to  meet  the  boat  at  a  point  agreed  on,  which, 
owing  to  the  windings  of  the  river,  it  would  not  reach  till  even- 
ing.   They  accordingly  took  their  guns,  and  as  they  had  to 

cross  a  swamp,  Major  R  ,  who  was  well  acquainted  with 

the  country,  put  on  a  heavy  pair  of  top-boots,  which,  together 
with  an  odd  limp  he  had  in  his  gait,  rendered  him  distinguish- 
able from  the  rest  of  the  party  at  a  considerable  distance.  When 
they  reached  the  jungle,  they  found  there  was  a  wide  ditch  to 
leap,  which  all  succeeded  in  doing  except  the  major,  who  being 
less  young  active,  jumped  short  of  the  requisite  distance;  and 
although  he  scrambled  up  unhurt,  he  found  his  gun  so  crammed 
full  of  wet  sand  that  it  would  be  useless  till  thoroughly  cleansed. 
He  therefore  bade  them  walk  on,  saying  he  would  follow  ;  and 
taking  off  his  hat,  he  sat  down  in  the  shade,  where  they  left  him. 
When  they  had  been  beating  about  for  game  some  time,  they 
began  to  wonder  why  the  major  did  not  come  on,  and  they 
shouted  to  let  him  know  whereabouts  they  were  ;  but  there  was 
no  answer,  and  hour  after  hour  passed  without  his  appearance, 
till  at  length  they  began  to  feel  somewhat  uneasy. 

Thus  the  day  wore  away,  and  they  found  themselves  ap- 
proaching the  rendezvous.  The  boat  was  in  sight,  and  they 
were  walking  down  to  it,  wondering  how  their  friend  could 
have  missed  them,  when  suddenly,  to  their  great  joy,  they  saw 
him  before  them,  making  toward  the  barge.  He  was  without 
his  hat  or  gun,  limping  hastily  along  in  his  top-boots,  and  did 


184  THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 

not  appear  to  observe  them.  They  shouted  after  him,  but  as  he 
did  not  look  round,  they  began  to  run,  in  order  to  overtake  him  ; 
and,  indeed,  fast  as  he  went,  they  did  gain  considerably  upon 
him.  Still  he  reached  the  boat  first,  crossing  the  plank  which 
the  boatmen  had  placed  ready  for  the  gentlemen  they  saw  ap- 
proaching. He  ran  down  the  companion-stairs,  and  they  after 
him ;  but  inexpressible  was  their  surprise  when  they  could  not 
find  him  below !  They  ascended  again,  and  inquired  of  the 
boatmen  what  had  become  of  him  ;  but  they  declared  he  had 
not  come  on  board,  and  that  nobody  had  crossed  the  plank  till 
the  young  men  ihemselves  had  done  so. 

Confounded  and  amazed  at  what  appeared  so  inexplicable, 
and  doubly  anxious  about  their  friend,  they  immediately  re- 
solved to  retrace  their  steps  in  search  of  him  ;  and,  accompanied 
by  some  Indians  who  knew*  the  jungle,  they  made  their  way 
back  to  the  spot  where  they  had  left  him.  Thence  some  foot- 
marks enabled  them  to  trace  him,  till,  at  a  very  short  distance 
from  the  ditch,  they  found  his  hat  and  his  gun.  Just  then  the 
Indians  called  out  to  them  to  beware,  for  that  there  was  a  sunken 
well  thereabouts,  into  which  they  might  fall.  An  apprehension 
naturally  seized  them  that  this  might  have  been  the  fate  of  their 
fr  iend  ;  and  on  examining  the  edge,  they  saw  a  mark  as  of  a 
heel  slipping  up.  Upon  this,  one  of  the  Indians  consented  to 
go  down,  having  a  rope  with  which  they  had  provided  them- 
selves tied  round  his  waist ;  for,  aware  of  the  existence  of  the 
wells,  the  natives  suspected  what  had  actually  occurred,  namely, 
that  the  unfortunate  gentleman  had  slipped  into  one  of  these 
traps,  which,  being  overgrown  with  brambles,  were  not  dis- 
cernible by  the  eye.  With  the  assistance  of  the  Indian,  the 
body  was  brought  up  and  carried  back  to  the  boat,  amid  the 
deep  regrets  of  the  party,  with  whom  he  had  been  a  great  fa- 
vorite. They  proceeded  with  it  to  the  next  station,  where  an 
inquiry  was  instituted  as  to  the  manner  of  his  death,  but  of 
course  there  was  nothing  more  to  be  elicited. 

I  give  this  story  as  related  by  one  of  the  parties  present,  and 
there  is  no  doubt  of  its  perfect  authenticity.  He  says  he  can 
in  no  way  account  for  the  mystery — he  can  only  relate  the  fact  ; 


APPARITIONS. 


185 


and  not  one,  but  the  whole  five  cadets,  saw  him  as  distinctly  as 
they  saw  each  other.  It  was  evident,  from  the  spot  where  the 
body  was  found,  which  was  not  many  hundred  yards  from  the 
well,  that  the  accident  must  have  occurred  very  shortly  after 
they  left  him.    When  the  young  men  reached  the  boat,  Major 

R  must  have  been,  for  some  seven  or  eight  hours,  a  denizen 

of  the  other  world,  yet  he  kept  the  rendezvous ! 

There  was  a  similar  occurrence  in  Devonshire,  some  years 
back,  which  happened  to  the  well-known  Dr.  Hawker,  who, 
one  night  in  the  street,  observed  an  old  woman  pass  him,  to 
whom  he  was  in  the  habit  of  giving  a  weekly  charity.  Imme- 
diately after  she  had  passed,  he  felt  somebody  pull  his  coat, 
and  on  looking  round  saw  it  was  her,  whereupon  he  put  his 
hand  in  his  pocket  to  seek  for  a  sixpence,  but  on  turning  to 
give  it  to  her  she  was  gone.  He  thought  nothing  about  it ;  but 
when  he  got  home,  he  inquired  if  she  had  had  her  money  that 
week,  —  when,  to  his  amazement,  he  heard  she  was  dead,  but 
his  family  had  forgotten  to  mention  the  circumstance.  I  have 
met  with  two  curious  cases,  occurring  in  Edinburgh,  of  late 
years  ;  in  one,  a  young  man  and  his  sister  were  in  their  kitchen, 
warming  themselves  over  the  fire  before  they  retired  to  bed, 
when,  on  raising  their  eyes,  they  both  saw  a  female  figure, 
dressed  in  white,  standing  in  the  door-way  and  looking  at  them  ; 

she  was  leaning  against  one  of  the  door-posts.    Miss  E  ,  the 

young  lady,  screamed  ;  whereupon  the  figure  advanced,  crossed 
the  kitchen  toward  a  closet,  and  disappeared.  There  was  no 
egress  at  the  closet :  and  as  they  lived  in  a  flat,  and  the  door 
was  closed  for  the  night,  a  stranger  could  neither  have  entered 
the  house  nor  got  out  of  it.  In  the  other  instance,  there  were 
two  houses  on  one  flat,  the  doors  opposite  each  other.  In  one 
of  the  houses  there  resided  a  person  with  her  two  daughters, 
grown-up  women  :  in  the  other  lived  a  shoemaker  and  his  wife. 
The  latter  died,  and  it  was  said  her  husband  had  ill-treated  her 
and  worried  her  out  of  the  world.  He  was  a  drunken,  dissi- 
pated man,  and  used  to  be  out  till  a  late  hour  most  nights, 
while  this  poor  woman  sat  up  for  him,  and  when  she  heard  a 
voice  on  the  stairs,  or  a  bell,  she  used  often  to  come  out  and 


18G 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


look  over  to  see  if  it  were  her  husband  returned.  One  night, 
when  she  had  been  dead  some  weeks,  the  two  young  women 
were  ascending  the  stairs  to  their  own  door,  when,  to  their 
amazement,  they  both  saw  her  standing  at  the  top,  looking  over 
as  she  used  to  do  in  her  lifetime.  At  the  same  moment  their 
mother  opened  the  door  and  saw  the  figure  also ;  the  girls 
rushed  past,  overcome  with  terror,  and  one  if  not  both  fainted 
as  soon  as  they  got  into  the  door.  The  youngest  fell  on  her 
face  in  the  passage. 

Another  case,  which  occurred  in  this  town,  I  mention  — 
although  I  know  it  is  liable  to  be  called  a  spectral  illusion — be- 
cause it  bears  a  remarkable  similarity  to  one  which  took  place 
in  America.  A  respectable  woman  lost  her  father,  for  whom 
she  had  a  great  affection ;  she  was  of  a  serious  turn,  and  much 
attached  to  the  tenets  of  her  church,  in  which  particulars  she 
thought  her  father  had  been  deficient.  She  was  therefore  very 
unhappy  about  him,  fearing  that  he  had  not  died  in  a  proper 
state  of  mind.  A  considerable  time  had  elapsed  since  his  death, 
but  her  distrust  of  his  condition  was  still  causing  her  uneasi- 
ness ;  when  one  day,  while  she  was  sitting  at  her  work,  she  felt 
something  touch  her  shoulder,  and  on  looking  round  she  per- 
ceived her  father,  who  bade  her  cease  to  grieve  about  him,  as 
he  was  not  unhappy.  From  that  moment  she  became  perfectly 
resigned  and  cheerful.  The  American  case  —  1  have  omitted 
to  write  down  the  name  of  the  place,  and  forget  it  —  was  that 
of  a  mother  and  son.  She  was  also  a  highly  respectable  per- 
son, and  was  described  to  me  as  perfectly  trustworthy  by  one 
who  knew  her.  She  was  a  widow,  and  had  one  son,  to  whom 
she  was  extremely  attached.  He  however  disappeared  one 
day,  and  she  never  could  learn  what  had  become  of  him ;  she 
always  said  that  if  she  did  but  know  his  fate  she  should  be  hap- 
pier. At  length,  when  he  had  been  dead  a  considerable  time, 
her  attention  was  one  day,  while  reading,  attracted  by  a  slight 
noise,  which  induced  her  to  look  round,  and  she  saw  her  son, 
dripping  with  water,  and  with  a  sad  expression  of  countenance. 
The  features,  however,  presently  relaxed,  and  they  assumed  a 
more  pleasing  aspect  before  he  disappeared.    From  that  time 


APPARITIONS. 


187 


she  ceased  to  grieve,  and  it  was  subsequently  ascertained  that 
the  young  man  had  run  away  to  sea ;  but  no  more  was  known 
of  him.  Certain  it  was,  however,  that  she  attributed  her  re- 
covered tranquillity  to  having  seen  her  son  as  above  narrated. 

A  lady  with  whom  I  am  acquainted  was  one  day,  when  a 
girl,  standing  at  the  top  of  the  stairs,  with  two  others,  discus- 
sing their  games,  when  they  each  suddenly  exclaimed  :  "  Who's 
that  ?"  There  was  a  fourth  among  them  —  a  girl  in  a  checked 
pinafore ;  but  she  was  gone  again.  They  had  all  seen  her. 
One  day  a  younger  brother,  in  the  same  house,  was  playing 
with  a  whip,  when  he  suddenly  laughed  at  something,  and 
cried  "  Take  that ;"  and  described  having  seen  the  same  girl. 
This  led  to  some  inquiry,  and  it  was  said  that  such  a  girl 
as  they  described  had  lived  in  that  house,  and  had  died  from 
the  bite  of  a  mad  dog  ;  or,  rather,  had  been  smothered  between 
two  feather-beds  :  but  whether  that  was  actually  done,  or  was 
only  a  report,  I  can  not  say.  Supposing  this  to  have  been  no 
illusion,  and  I  really  can  not  see  how  it  could  be  one,  the  mem- 
ory of  past  sports  and  pleasures  seems  to  have  so  survived  as 
to  have  attracted  the  young  soul,  prematurely  cut  off,  to  the 
spot  where  the  same  sports  and  pleasures  were  being  enjoyed 
by  the  living. 

A  maid-servant  in  one  of  the  midland  counties  of  England, 
being  up  early  one  morning,  heard  her  name  called  in  a  voice 
that  seemed  to  be  her  brother's,  a  sailor  then  at  sea;  and  run- 
ning up,  she  found  him  standing  in  the  hall ;  he  said  he  was 
come  from  afar,  and  was  going  again,  and  mentioned  some 
other  things  ;  when  her  mistress,  hearing  voices,  called  to  know 
who  she  was  talking  to  :  she  said  it  was  her  brother  from  sea. 
After  speaking  to  her  for  some  time,  she  suddenly  lost  sight  of 
him,  and  found  herself  alone.  Amazed  and  puzzled,  she  told 
her  mistress  what  had  happened,  who  being  led  thus  to  suspect 
the  kind  of  visiter  it  was,  looked  out  of  the  window  to  ascertain 
if  there  were  any  marks  of  footsteps,  the  ground  being  covered 
with  snow.  There  were,  however,  none,  —  and  it  was  there- 
fore clear  that  nobody  could  have  entered  the  house.  Intelli- 
gence afterward  arrived  of  the  young  man's  death. 


188 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF 


NATURE. 


This  last  is  a  case  of  wraith,  but  a  move  complicated  one, 
from  the  circumstance  of  speech  being  superadded.  But  this 
is  not  by  any  means  an  isolated  particular;  there  are  many 
such.  The  author  of  the  book  called  "Accredited  Ghost  Sto- 
ries"—  whose  name  I  at  this  moment  forget,  and  I  have  not  the 
book  at  hand  —  gives,  on  his  own  authority,  the  following  cir- 
cumstance, professing  to  be  acquainted  with  the  parties.  A 
company  were  visiting  York  cathedral,  when  a  gentleman  and 
lady,  who  had  detached  themselves  from  the  rest,  observed  an 
officer  wearing  a  naval  uniform  approaching  them ;  he  walked 
quickly,  saying  to  the  lady,  as  he  passed,  "  There  is  another 
world."  The  gentleman,  seeing  her  greatly  agitated,  pursued 
the  stranger,  but  lost  sight  of  him,  and  nobody  had  seen  such 
a  person  but  themselves.  On  returning  to  his  companion,  she 
told  him  that  it  was  her  brother,  who  was  then  abroad  with  his 
ship,  and  with  whom  she  had  frequently  held  discussions  as  to 
whether  there  was  or  was  not  a  future  life.  The  news  of  the 
young  man's  death  shortly  reached  the  family.  In  this  case  the 
brother  must  have  been  dead  ;  the  spirit  must  have  passed  out 
of  this  world  into  that  other,  the  existence  of  which  he  came  to 
certify.  This  is  one  of  those  cases  which  —  happening  not  long 
ago  —  leads  one  especially  to  regret  the  want  of  moral  courage 
which  prevents  people  giving  up  their  names  and  avowing  their 
experience.  The  author  of  the  abovementioned  book,  from 
which  I  borrow  this  story,  says  that  the  sheet  had  gone  to  the 
press  with  the  real  names  of  the  parties  attached,  but  that  he 
was  requested  to  withdraw  them,  as  it  would  be  painful  to 
the  family.  My  view  of  this  case  is  so  different,  that,  had  it 
occurred  to  myself,  I  should  have  felt  it  my  imperative  duty  to 
make  it  known  and  give  every  satisfaction  to  inquirers. 

Some  years  ago,  during  the  war,  when  Sir  Robert  H.  E  

was  in  the  Netherlands,  he  happened  to  be  quartered  with  two 
other  officers,  one  of  whom  was  despatched  into  Holland  on  an 

expedition.    One  night,  during  his  absence,  Sir  R.  H.  E  

awoke,  and,  to  his  great  surprise,  saw  this  absent  friend  sitting 
on  the  bed  which  he  used  to  occupy,  with  a  wound  in  his 
breast.    Sir  Robert  immediately  awoke  his  companion,  who 


APPARITIONS.  189 

saw  the  spectre  also.  The  latter  then  addressed  them,  saying 
that  he  had  been  that  day  killed  in  a  skirmish,  and  that  he  had 
died  in  great  anxiety  about  his  family,  wherefore  he  had  come 
to  communicate  that  there  was  a  deed  of  much  consequence 
to  them  deposited  in  the  hands  of  a  certain  lawyer  in  London, 
whose  name  and  address  he  mentioned,  adding  that  this  man's 
honesty  was  not  to  be  altogether  relied  on.  He  therefore  re- 
quested that,  on  their  return  to  England,  they  would  go  to  his 
house  and  demand  the  deed,  but  that,  if  he  denied  the  posses- 
sion of  it,  they  were  to  seek  it  in  a  certain  drawer  in  his  office, 
which  he  described  to  them.  The  circumstance  impressed  them 
very  much  at  the  time,  but  a  long  time  had  elapsed  ere  they 
reached  England,  during  which  period  they  had  gone  through 
60  many  adventures  and  seen  so  many  friends  fall  around  them, 
that  this  impression  was  considerably  weakened,  insomuch  that 
each  went  to  his  own  home  and  his  own  pursuits  without  think- 
ing of  fulfilling  the  commission  they  had  undertaken.  Some 
time  afterward,  however,  it  happened  that  they  both  met  in 
London,  and  they  then  resolved  to  seek  the  street  that  had  been 
named  to  them,  and  ascertain  if  such  a  man  lived  there.  They 
found  him,  requested  an  interview,  and  demanded  the  deed,  the 
possession  of  which  he  denied ;  but  their  eyes  were  upon  the 
drawer  that  had  been  described  to  them,  where  they  asserted  it 
to  be,  and  being  there  discovered,  it  was  delivered  into  their 
hands.  Here,  also,  the  soul  had  parted  from  the  body,  while 
the  memory  of  the  past  and  an  anxiety  for  the  worldly  prosper- 
ity, of  those  left  behind,  survived ;  and  we  thus  see  that  the 
condition  of  mind  in  which  this  person  had  died,  remained  un- 
changed. He  was  not  indifferent  to  the  worldly  prosperity 
of  his  relatives,  and  he  found  his  own  state  rendered  unhappy 
by  the  fear  that  they  might  suffer  from  the  dishonesty  of  his 
agent.  It  may  here  be  naturally  objected  that  hundreds  of 
much-loved  widows  and  orphans  have  been  ruined  by  dis- 
honest trustees  and  agents,  where  no  ghost,  came  back  to  in- 
struct them  in  the  means  of  obviating  the  misfortune.  This  is, 
no  doubt,  a  very  legitimate  objection,  and  one  which  it  is  very 
difficult  to  answer.  I  must,  however,  repeat  what  I  said  before, 


i<JO 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


nature  is  full  of  exceptional  cases,  while  we  know  very  little 
of  the  laws  which  regulate  these  exceptions ;  but  we  may  see 
a  very  good  reason  for  the  fact  that  such  communications  are 
the  exception,  and  not  the  rule  ;  for  if  they  were  the  latter,  the 
whole  economy  of  this  earthly  life  would  be  overturned,  and  its 
affairs  must  necessarily  be  conducted  in  a  totally  different  man- 
ner to  that  which  prevails  at  present.  What  the  effects  of  such 
an  arrangement  of  nature  would  be,  had  it  pleased  God  to 
make  it,  he  alone  knows ;  but  certain  it  is,  that  man's  freedom, 
as  a  moral  agent,  would  be  in  a  great  degree  abrogated,  were 
the  barriers  that  impede  our  intercourse  with  the  spiritual 
world  removed. 

It  may  be  answered,  that  this  is  an  argument  which  may  be 
directed  against  the  fact  of  such  appearances  being  permitted 
at  all ;  but  that  is  a  fallacious  objection.  Earthquakes  and  hur- 
ricanes are  occasionally  permitted,  which  overthrow  the  work 
of  man's  hands  for  centuries  ;  but  if  these  convulsions  of  nature 
were  of  every-day  occurrence,  nobody  would  think  it  worth 
their  while  to  build  a  house  or  cultivate  the  earth,  and  the  world 
would  be  a  wreck  and  a  wilderness.  The  apparitions  that  do 
appear,  are  not  without  their  use  to  those  who  believe  in  them; 
while  there  is  too  great  an  uncertainty  attending  the  subject, 
generally  to  allow  of  its  ever  being  taken  into  consideration  in 
mundane  affairs. 

The  old,  so  called,  superstition  of  the  people,  that  a  person's 
"  dying  with  something  on  his  mind"  is  one  of  the  frequent  cau- 
ses of  these  revisitings,  seems,  like  most  other  of  their  supersti- 
tions, to  be  founded  on  experience.  I  meet  with  many  cases  in 
which  some  apparently  trivial  anxiety,  or  some  frustrated  com- 
munication, prevents  the  uneasy  spirit  flinging  off  the  bonds  that 
bind  it  to  the  earth.  I  could  quote  many  examples  characterized 
by  this  feature,  but  will  confine  myself  to  two  or  three. 

Jung  Stilling  gives  a  very  curious  one,  which  occurred  in  the 
year  1746,  and  for  the  authenticity  of  which  he  vouches.  A  gen- 
tleman of  the  name  of  Dorrien,  of  most  excellent  character  and 
amiable  disposition,  who  was  tutor  in  the  Carolina  Colleges,  at 
Brunswick,  died  there  in  that  year  ;  and  immediately  previous  to 


APPARITIONS. 


191 


his  death  he  sent  to  request  an  interview  with  another  tutor,  of 
the  name  of  Hofer,  with  whom  he  had  lived  on  terms  of  friend- 
ship. Hofer  obeyed  the  summons,  but  came  too  late,  the  dying 
man  was  already  in  the  last  agonies.  After  a  short  time,  rumors 
began  to  circulate  that  Herr  Dorrien  had  been  seen  by  different 
persons  about  the  college ;  but  as  it  was  with  the  pupils  that 
these  rumors  originated,  they  were  supposed  to  be  mere  fan- 
cies, and  no  attention  whatever  was  paid  to  them.  At  length, 
however,  in  the  month  of  October,  three  months  after  the  de- 
cease of  Herr  Dorrien,  a  circumstance  occurred  that  excited 
considerable  amazement  among  the  professors.  It  formed  part 
of  the  duty  of  Hofer  to  go  through  the  college  every  night, 
between  the  hours  of  eleven  and  twelve,  for  the  purpose  of 
ascertaining  that  all  the  scholars  were  in  bed,  and  that  nothing 
irregular  was  going  on  among  them.  On  the  night  in  question, 
on  entering  one  of  the  ante-rooms  in  the  execution  of  this  duty, 
he"  saw,  to  his  great  amazement,  Herr  Dorrien,  seated,  in  the 
dressing-gown  and  white  cap  he  was  accustomed  to  wear,  and 
holding  the  latter  with  his  right  hand,  in  such  a  manner  as 
to  conceal  the  upper  part  of  the  face ;  from  the  eyes  to  the 
chin,  however,  it  was  distinctly  visible.  This  unexpected  sight 
naturally  startled  Hofer,  but,  summoning  resolution,  he  ad- 
vanced into  the  young  men's  chamber,  and,  having  ascertained 
that  all  was  in  order,  closed  the  door ;  he  then  turned  his  eyes 
again  toward  the  spectre,  and  there  it  sat  as  before,  whereupon 
he  went  up  to  it,  and  stretched  out  his  arm  toward  it ;  but  he  was 
now  seized  with  such  a  feeling  of  indescribable  horror,  that  he 
could  scarcely  withdraw*  his  hand,  which  became  swollen  to  a 
degree  that  for  some  months  he  had  no  use  of  it.  On  the  fol- 
lowing day  he  related  this  circumstance  to  the  professor  of 
mathematics,  Oeder,  who  of  course  treated  the  thing  as  a  spec- 
tral illusion.  He,  however,  consented  to  accompany  Hofer  on 
his  rounds  the  ensuing  night,  satisfied  that  he  should  be  able 
either  to  convince  him  it  was  a  mere  phantasm,  or  else  a  spec- 
tre of  flesh  and  blood  that  was  ptaying  him  a  trick.  They 
accordingly  went  at  the  usual  hour,  but  no  sooner  had  the  pro- 
fessor set  his  foot  in  that  same  room,  than  he  exclaimed,  "  By 


192 


THE  JXIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


Heavens  !  it  is  Dorrien  himself!"  Hofer,  in  the  meantime,  pro- 
ceeded into  the  chamber  as  before,  in  the  pursuance  of  his 
duties,  and,  on  his  return,  they  both  contemplated  the  figure 
for  some  time ;  neither  of  them  had,  however,  the  courage  to 
address  or  approach  it,  and  finally  quitted  the  room,  very  much 
impressed,  and  perfectly  convinced  that  they  had  seen  Dorrien. 

This  incident  soon  got  spread  abroad,  and  many  people  came 
in  hopes  of  satisfying  their  own  eyes  of  the  fact,  but  their  pains 
were  fruitless  ;  and  even  Professor  Oeder,  who  had  made  up 
his  mind  to  speak  to  the  apparition,  sought  it  repeatedly  in  the 
same  place  in  vain.  At  length,  he  gave  it  up,  and  ceased  to 
think  of  it,  saying,  "  I  have  sought  the  ghost  long  enough ;  if 
he  has  anything  to  say,  he  must  now  seek  me."  About  a  fort- 
night after  this,  he  was  suddenly  awakened,  between  three  and 
four  o'clock  in  the  morning,  by  something  moving  in  his  cham- 
ber, and  on  opening  his  eyes,  he  beheld  a  shadowy  form,  having 
the  same  appearance  as  the  spectre,  standing  in  front  of  a  press 
which  was  not  more  than  two  steps  from  his  bed.  He  raised 
himself,  and  contemplated  the  figure,  the  features  of  which  he 
saw  distinctly  for  some  minutes,  till  it  disappeared.  On  the 
following  night  he  was  awakened  in  the  same  manner,  and  saw 
the  figure  as  before,  with  the  addition  that  there  was  a  sound 
proceeded  from  the  door  of  the  press,  as  if  somebody  was  lean- 
ing against  it.  The  spectre  also  stayed  longer  this  time,  and  Pro- 
fessor Oeder,  no  doubt  frightened  and  angry,  addressing  it  as  an 
evil  spirit,  bade  it  begone,  whereon  it  made  gestures  with  its 
head  and  hands  that  alarmed  him  so  much,  that  he  adjured  it  in 
the  name  of  God  to  leave  him,  which  it  did.  Eight  days  now 
elapsed  without  any  further  disturbance,  but,  after  that  period, 
the  visits  of  the  spirit  were  resumed,  and  he  was  awakened  by 
it  repeatedly  about  three  in  the  morning,  when  it  would  advance 
from  the  press  to  the  bed,  and,  hang  its  head  over  him  in  a 
manner  so  annoying,  that  he  started  up  and  struck  at  it,  where- 
upon it  would  retire,  but  presently  advance  again.  Perceiving 
now,  that  the  countenance  was  rather  placid  and  friendly  thnn 
otherwise,  the  professor  at  length  addressed  it,  and,  having  rea- 
son to  believe  that  Dorrien  had  left  some  debts  unpaid,  he  asked 


APPARITIONS. 


103 


him  if  that  were  the  case,  upon  which  the  spectre  retreated 
some  steps,  and  seemed  to  place  itself  in  an  attitude  of  atten- 
tion. Oeder  reiterated  the  inquiry,  whereupon  the  figure  drew 
its  hand  across  its  mouth,  in  which  the  professor  now  observed 
a  short  pipe.  "  Is  it  to  the  barber  you  are  in  debt  V*  he  inquired. 
The  spectre  slowly  shook  its  head.  "  Is  it  to  the  tobacconist, 
then  ?"  asked  he,  the  question  being  suggested  by  the  pipe. 
Hereupon  the  form  retreated,  and  disappeared.  On  the  follow- 
ing day,  Oeder  narrated  what  had  occurred  to  Councillor  Erath, 
one  of  the  curators  of  the  college,  and  also  to  the  sister  of  the 
deceased,  and  arrangements  were  made  for  discharging  the 
debt.  Professor  Seidler,  of  the  same  college,  now  proposed  to 
pass  the  night  with  Oeder,  for  the  purpose  of  observing  if  the 
ghost  came  again,  which  it  did  about  five  o'clock,  and  awoke 
Oeder  as  usual,  who  awoke  his  companion,  but  just  then  the 
form  disappeared,  and  Seidler  said  he  only  saw  something  white. 
They  then  both  disposed  themselves  to  sleep,  but  presently  Seid- 
ler was  aroused  by  Oeder's  starting  up  and  striking  out,  while 
he  cried,  with  a  voice  expressive  of  rage  and  horror,  "  Begone  ! 
You  have  tormented  me  long  enough  !  If  you  want  anything 
of  me,  say  what  it  is,  or  give  me  an  intelligible  sign,  and  come 
here  no  more !" 

Seidler  heard  all  this,  though  he  saw  nothing ;  but  as  soon  as 
Oeder  was  somewhat  appeased,  he  told  him  that  the  figure  had 
returned^  and  not  only  approached  the  bed,  but  stretched  itself 
upon  it.  After  this,  Oeder  burned  a  light,  and  had  some  one  in 
the  room  every  night.  He  gained  this  advantage  by  the  light, 
that  he  saw  nothing;  but  about  four  o'clock,  he  was  generally 
awakened  by  noises  in  his  room,  and  other  symptoms  that  satis- 
fied him  the  ghost  was  there.  At  length,  however,  this  annoy- 
ance ceased  also  ;  and  trusting  that  his  unwelcome  guest  had 
taken  his  leave,  he  dismissed  his  bedfellow,  and  dispensed  with 
his  light.  Two  nights  passed  quietly  over  ;  on  the  third,  how- 
ever, the  spectre  returned ;  but  very  perceptibly  darker.  It 
now  presented  another  sign,  or  symbol,  which  seemed  to  rep- 
resent a  picture,  with  a  hole  in  the  middle,  through  which  it 
thrust  its  head.    Oeder  was  now  so  little  alarmed,  that  he  bade 

9 


194 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


it  express  its  wishes  more  clearly,  or  approach  nearer.  To 
these  requisitions  the  apparition  shook  its  head,  and  then  van- 
ished. This  strange  phenomenon  recurred  several  times,  and 
even  in  the  presence  of  another  curator  of  the  college ;  but  it 
was  with  considerable  difficulty  they  discovered  what  the  sym- 
bol was  meant  to  convey.  They  at  length,  however,  found  that 
Dorrien  just  before  his  illness,  had  obtained,  on  trial,  several 
pictures  for  a  magic  lantern,  which  had  never  been  returned  to 
their  owner.  This  was  now  done,  and  from  that  time  the  ap- 
parition was  neither  seen  nor  heard  again.  Professor  Oeder 
made  no  secret  of  these  circumstances ;  he  related  them  pub- 
licly in  court  and  college  ;  he  wrote  the  account  to  several  em- 
inent persons,  and  declared  himself  ready  to  attest  the  facts  up- 
on his  oath. 

Stilling,  who  relates  this  story,  has  been  called  superstitious; 
he  may  be  so  ;  but  his  piety  and  his  honesty  are  above  suspi- 
cion ;  he  says  the  facts  are  well  known,  and  that  he  can  vouch 
for  their  authenticity  ;  and  as  he  must  have  been  a  contempo- 
rary of  the  parties  concerned,  he  had,  doubtless,  good  oppor- 
tunities of  ascertaining  what  foundation  there  was  for  the  story. 
It  is  certainly  a  very  extraordinary  one,  and  the  demeanor  of 
the  spirit  as  little  like  what  we  should  have  naturally  appre- 
hended as  possible  ;  but,  as  I  have  said  before,  we  have  no 
right  to  pronounce  any  opinion  on  this  subject,  except  from  ex- 
perience, and  there  are  two  arguments  to  be  advanced  in  favor 
of  this  narration ;  the  one  being,  that  I  can  not  imagine  any- 
body setting  about  to  invent  a  ghost-story,  would  have  intro- 
duced circumstances  so  apparently  improbable  and  inappropri- 
ate ;  and  the  other  consisting  in  the  fact,  that  I  have  met  with 
numerous  relations,  coming  from  very  opposite  quarters,  which 
seem  to  corroborate  the  one  in  question. 

With  respect  to  the  cause  of  the  spectre's  appearance,  Jung 
Stilling,  I  think,  reasonably  enough,  suggests,  that  the  poor  man 
had  intended  to  commission  Hofer  to  settle  these  little  affairs 
for  him,  but  that  delaying  this  duty  too  long,  his  mind  had  been 
oppressed  by  the  recollection  of  them  in  his  last  moments  —  he 
had  carried  his  care  with  him,  and  it  bound  him  to  the  earth. 


APPARITIONS. 


195 


Wherefore,  considering  how  many  persons  die  with  duties  un- 
performed, this  anxiety  to  repair  the  neglect,  is  not  more  fre- 
quently manifested,  we  do  not  know  ;  some  reasons  we  have 
already  suggested  as  possible ;  there  may  be  others  of  which 
we  can  form  no  idea,  any  more  than  we  can  solve  the  question, 
why  in  some  cases  communication  and  even  speech  seems  easy, 
while  in  this  instance,  the  spirit  was  only  able  to  convey  its 
wishes  by  gestures  and  symbols.  Its  addressing  itself  to  Oeder 
instead  of  Hofer,  probably  arose  from  its  finding  communica- 
tion with  him  less  difficult ;  the  swelling  of  Hofer's  arm  indi- 
cating that  his  physical  nature  was  not  adapted  for  this  spiritual 
intercourse.  With  respect  to  Oeder's  expedient  of  burning  a 
light  in  his  room,  in  order  to  prevent  his  seeing  this  shadowy 
form,  we  can  comprehend,  that  the  figure  would  be  discerned 
more  easily  on  the  dark  ground  of  comparative  obscurity,  and 
that  clear  light  would  render  it  invisible.  Dr.  Kerner  mentions, 
on  one 'occasion,  that  while  sitting  in  an  adjoining  room,  with 
the  door  open,  he  had  seen  a  shadowy  figure,  to  whom  his  pa- 
tient was  speaking,  standing  beside  her  bed ;  and  catching  up 
a  candle,  he  had  rushed  toward  it ;  but  as  soon  as  he  thus  illu- 
minated the  chamber,  he  could  no  longer  distinguish  it. 

The  ineffective  and  awkward  attempts  of  this  apparition 
to  make  itself  understood,  are  not  easily  to  be  reconciled  t'o 
our  ideas  of  a  spirit,  while,  at  the  same  time,  that  which  it 
could  do,  and  that  which  it  could  not  —  the  powers  it  pos- 
sessed and  those  it  wanted  —  tend  to  throw  some  light  on  its 
condition.  As  regards  space,  we  may  suppose  that,  in  this  in- 
stance, what  St.  Martin  said  of  ghosts  in  general,  may  be  appli- 
cable :  "  Je  ne  crois  pas  aux  revenants,  mais  je  croix  aux  res- 
tants ;"  that  is,  he  did  not  believe  that  spirits  who  had  once 
quitted  the  earth  returned  to  it,  but  he  believed  that  some  did 
not  quit  it,  and  thus,  as  the  somnambule  mentioned  in  a  former 
chapter  said  to  me,  "  Some  are  waiting  and  some  are  gone  on 
before." 

Dorrien's  uneasiness  and  worldly  care  chained  him  to  the 
earth,  and  he  was  a  restant — but,  being  a  spirit,  he  was  inevi- 
tably inducted  into  some  of  the  inherent  properties  of  spirit ; 


196 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


matter  to  him  was  no  impediment,  neither  doors  nor  walls  could 
keep  him  out ;  he  had  the  intuitive  perception  of  whom  he 
could  most  easily  communicate  with,  or  he  was  brought  into 
rapport  with  Oeder  by  the  latter's  seeking  him ;  and  he  could 
either  so  act  on  Oeder's  constructive  imagination  as  to  enable 
it  to  project  his  own  figure,  with  the  short  pipe  and  the  pictures, 
or  he  could,  by  the  magical  power  of  his  will,  build  up  these 
images  out  of  the  constituents  of  the  atmosphere.  The  last 
seems  the  most  probable,  because,  had  the  rapport  with  Oeder, 
or  Oeder's  receptivity,  been  sufficient  to  enable  the  spirit  to  act 
potently  upon  him,  it  would  have  been  also  able  to  infuse  into 
his  mind  the  wishes  it  desired  to  convey,  even  without  speech, 
for  speech,  as  a  means  of  communication  between  spirits,  must 
be  quite  unnecessary.  Even  in  spite  of  these  dense  bodies  of 
ours,  we  have  great  difficulty  in  concealing  our  thoughts  from 
each  other ;  and  the  somnambule  reads  the  thoughts  of  not  only 
his  magnetizer,  but  of  others  with  whom  he  is  placed  in  rap- 
port. In  cases  where  speech  appears  to  be  used  by  a  spirit,  it 
is  frequently  not  audible  speech,  but  only  this  transference  of 
thought,  which  appears  to  be  speech  from  the  manner  in  which 
the  thought  is  borne  in  and  enters  the  mind  of  the  receiver ; 
but  it  is  not  through  his  ears,  but  through  his  universal  supple- 
mentary sense,  that  he  receives  it ;  and  it  is  no  more  like  what 
we  mean  by  hearing,  than  is  the  seeing  of  a  clairvoyant,  or  a 
spirit,  like  our  seeing  by  means  of  our  bodily  organs.  In  those 
cases  where  the  speech  is  audible  to  other  persons,  we  must 
suppose  that  the  magical  will  of  the  spirit  can,  by  means  of  the 
atmosphere,  simulate  these  sounds  as  it  can  simulate  others,  of 
which  I  shall  have  to  treat  by-and-by.  It  is  remarkable  that, 
in  some  instances,  this  magical  power  seems  to  extend  so  far  as 
to  represent  to  the  eye  of  the  seer  a  form  apparently  so  real, 
solid,  and  lifelike,  that  it  is  not  recognisable  from  the  living 
man  ;  while  in  other  cases  the  production  of  a  shadowy  figure 
seems  to  be  the  limit  of  its  agency,  whether  limited  by  its  own 
faculty  or  the  receptivity  of  its  subject :  but  we  must  be  quite 
sure  that  the  form  is,  in  either  instance,  equally  ethereal  or  im- 
material.   And  it  will  not  be  out  of  place  here  to  refer  to  the 


APPARITIONS. 


197 


standing  joke  of  the  skeptics,  about  ghosts  appearing  in  coats 
and  waistcoats.  Bentham  thought  he  had  settled  the  question 
for  ever  by  that  objection  ;  and  I  have  heard  it  since  frequently 
advanced  by  very  acute  persons ;  but,  properly  considered,  it 
has  not  the  least  validity. 

Whether  or  not  the  soul  on  leaving  its  earthly  tabernacle  finds 
itself  at  once  clothed  with  that  spiritual  body  which  St.  Paul 
refers  to,  is  what  we  can  not  know,  though  it  seems  highly 
probable  ;  but  if  it  be  so,  we  must  be  sure  that  this  body  resem- 
bles in  its  nature  that  fluent,  subtle  kind  of  matter,  called  by  us 
imponderables,  which  are  capable  of  penetrating  all  substances  ; 
and  unless  there  be  no  visible  body  at  all,  but  only  the  will  of  a 
disembodied  spirit  acting  upon  one  yet  in  the  flesh  (in  which 
case  it  were  as  easy  to  impress  the  imagination  with  a  clothed 
figure  as  an  unclothed  one),  we  must  conclude  that  this  ethereal 
flexible  form,  whether  permanent  or  temporary,  may  be  held 
together  and  retain  its  shape  by  the  volition  of  the  spirit,  as  our 
bodies  are  held  together  by  the  principle  of  life  that  is  in  them  ; 
and  we  see  in  various  instances,  where  the  spectator  has  been 
bold  enough  to  try  the  experiment,  that  though  the  shadowy 
body  was  pervious  to  any  substance  passed  through  it,  its  integ- 
rity was  only  momentarily  interrupted,  and  it  immediately  re- 
covered its  previous  shape. 

Now,  as  a  spirit — provided  there  be  no  especial  law  to  the 
contrary,  partial  or  universal,  absolute  or  otherwise,  governing 
the  spiritual  world — must  be  where  its  thoughts  and  wishes 
are,  just  as  we  should  be  at  the  place  we  intently  think  of,  or 
desire,  if  our  solid  bodies  did  not  impede  us,  so  must  a  spirit 
appear  as  it  is,  or  as  it  conceives  of  itself.  Morally,  it  can 
only  conceive  of  itself  as  it  is,  good  or  bad,  light  or  dark ;  but 
it  may  conceive  of  itself  clothed  as  well  as  unclothed ;  and  if  it 
can  conceive  of  its  former  body,  it  can  equally  conceive  of  its 
former  habiliments,  and  so  represent  them  by  its  power  of  will 
to  the  eye,  or  present  them  to  the  constructive  imagination  of 
the  seer  :  and  it  will  be  able  to  do  this  with  a  degree  of  distinct- 
ness proportioned  to  the  receptivity  of  the  latter,  or  to  the  in- 
tensity of  the  rapport  which  exists  between  them.    Now,  con- 


193 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


sidered  in  this  way,  the  appearance  of  a  spirit  "  in  its  habit  as 
it  lived"  is  no  more  extraordinary  than  the  appearance  of  a 
spirit  at  all,  and  it  adds  no  complexity  to  the  phenomenon.  If 
it  appears  at  all  in  a  recognisable  form,  it  must  come  naked  or 
clothed  :  the  former,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  would  be  much  more 
frightful  and  shocking;  and  if  it  be  clothed,  I  do  not  see  what 
right  we  have  to  expect  it  shall  be  in  a  fancy  costume,  conform- 
able to  our  ideas  (which  are  no  ideas  at  all)  of  the  other  world ; 
nor  why,  if  it  be  endowed  with  the  memory  of  the  past,  it 
should  not  be  natural  to  suppose  it  would  assume  the  external 
aspect  it  wore  during  its  earthly  pilgrimage.  Certain  it  is, 
whether  consistent  with  our  notions  or  not,  all  tradition  seems 
to  show  that  this  is  the  appearance  they  assume ;  and  the  very 
fact  that  on  the  first  view  of  the  case,  and%intil  the  question  is 
philosophically  considered,  the  addition  of  a  suit  of  clothes  to 
the  phenomenon  not  only  renders  its  acceptance  much  more 
difficult,  but  throws  an  air  of  absurdity  and  improbability  on 
the  whole  subject,  furnishes  a  very  strong  argument  in  favor  of 
the  persuasion  that  this  notion  has  been  founded  on  experience, 
and  is  not  the  result  of  either  fancy  or  gratuitous  invention. 

The  idea  of  spirits  appearing  like  angels,  with  wings,  &c, 
seems  to  be  drawn  from  these  relations  in  the  Bible,  when  mes- 
sengers were  sent  from  God  to  man  ;  but  those  departed  spirits 
are  not  angels,  though  probably  destined  in  the  course  of  ages 
to  become  so  :  in  the  meantime,  their  moral  state  continues  as 
when  they  quitted  the  body,  and  their  memories  and  affections 
are  with  the  earth — and  so,  earthly  they  appear,  more  or  less. 
We  meet  with  some  instances  in  which  bright  spirits  have  been 
seen  —  protecting  spirits,  for  example,  who  have  shaken  off  their 
earth  entirely,  clinging  to  it  yet  but  by  some  holy  affection  or 
mission  of  mercy  —  and  these  appear,  not  with  wings,  which 
whenever  seen  are  merely  symbolical,  for  we  can  not  imagine 
they  are  necessary  to  the  motion  of  a  spirit,  but  clothed  in  robes 
of  light.  Such  appearances,  however,  seem  much  more  rare 
than  the  others. 

It  will  seem  to  many  persons  very  inconsistent  with  their 
ideas  of  the  dignity  of  a  spirit  that  they  should  appear  and  act 


APPARITIONS. 


199 


in  the  manner  I  have  described,  and  shall  describe  further ;  and 
I  have  heard  it  objected  that  we  can  not  suppose  God  would 
permit  the  dead  to  return  merely  to  frighten  the  living,  and  that 
it  is  showing  him  little  reverence  to  imagine  he  would  suffer 
them  to  come  on  such  trifling  errands,  or  demean  themselves 
in  so  undignified  a  fashion.  But  God  permits  men  of  all  de- 
grees of  wickedness,  and  of  every  kind  of  absurdity,  to  exist, 
and  to  harass  and  disturb  the  earth,  while  they  expose  them- 
selves to  its  obloquy  or  its  ridicule. 

Now,  as  I  have  observed  in  a  former  chapter,  there  is  noth- 
ing more  perplexing  to  us  in  regarding  man  as  a  responsible 
being,  than  the  degree  to  which  we  have  reason  to  believe  his 
moral  nature  is  influenced  by  his  physical  organization ;  but 
leaving  this  difficult  question  to  be  decided  (if  ever  it  can  be 
decided  in  this  world)  by  wiser  heads  than  mine,  there  is  one 
thing  of  which  we  may  rest  perfectly  assured,  namely,  that  let 
the  fault  of  an  impure,  or  vicious,  or  even  merely  sensuous  life, 
lie  where  it  will  —  whether  it  be  the  wicked  spirit  within,  or  the 
ill-organized  body  without,  or  a  tertium  quid  of  both  combined 
—  still  the  soul  that  has  been  a  party  to  this  earthly  career, 
must  be  soiled  and  deteriorated  by  its  familiarity  with  evil ;  and 
there  seems  much  reason  to  believe  that  the  dissolution  of  the 
connection  between  the  soul  and  body  produces  far  less  change 
in  the  former  than  has  been  commonly  supposed.  People  gen- 
erally think  —  if  they  think  on  the  subject  at  all  —  that  as  soon 
as  they  are  dead,  if  they  have  lived  tolerably  virtuous  lives,  or 
indeed  been  free  from  any  great  crimes,  they  will  immediately 
find  themselves  provided  with  wings,  and  straightway  fly  up  to 
some  delightful  place,  which  they  call  heaven,  forgetting  how 
unfit  they  are  for  heavenly  fellowship  ;  and  although  I  can  not 
help  thinking  that  the  Almighty  has  mercifully  permitted  occa- 
sional relaxations  of  the  boundaries  that  separate  the  dead  from 
the  living,  for  the  purpose  of  showing  us  our  error,  we  are  de- 
termined not  to  avail  ourselves  of  the  advantage.  I  do  not  mean 
that  these  spirits — these  revenants  or  rcslants  —  are  special 
messengers  sent  to  warn  us  :  I  only  mean  that  their  occasionally 
"  revisiting  the  glimpses  of  the  moon"  form  the  exceptional 


200 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


rases  in  a  great  general  law  of  nature  which  divides  the  spirit- 
ual from  the  material  world;  and  that,  in  framing  this  law, 
these  exceptions  may  have  been  designed  for  our  benefit. 

There  are  several  stories  extant  in  the  English,  and  a  vast 
number  in  the  German  records,  which,  supposing  them  to  be 
well  founded  —  and  I  repeat,  that  for  many  of  them  we  have 
just  as  good  evidence  as  for  anything  else  we  believe  as  hear- 
say or  tradition  —  would  go  to  confirm  the  fact  that  the  spirits 
of  the  dead  are  sometimes  disturbed  by  what  appear  to  us  very 
trifling  cares.  I  give  the  following  case  from  Dr.  Kerner,  who 
says  it  was  related  to  him  by  a  very  respectable  man,  on  whose 
word  he  can  entirely  rely  : — 

"  I  was,"  said  Mr.  St.  S  ,  of  S  ,  "  the  son  of  a  man 

who  had  no  fortune  but  his  business,  in  which  he  was  ultimately 
successful.  At  first,  however,  his  means  being  narrow,  he  was 
perhaps  too  anxious  and  inclined  to  parsimony ;  so  that  when 
my  mother,  careful  housewife  as  she  was,  asked  him  for  money, 
the  demand  generally  led  to  a  quarrel.  This  occasioned  her 
great  uneasiness,  and  having  mentioned  this  characteristic  of 
her  husband  to  her  father,  the  old  man  advised  her  to  get  a 
t-econd  key  made  to  the  money-chest,  unknown  to  her  husband, 
considering  this  expedient  allowable  and  even  preferable  to  the 
destruction  of  their  conjugal  felicity,  and  feeling  satisfied  that 
she  would  make  no  ill  use  of  the  power  possessed.  My  mother 
followed  his  advice,  very  much  to  the  advantage  of  all  parties ; 
and  nobody  suspected  the  existence  of  this  second  key  except 
myself,  whom  she  had  admitted  into  her  confidence. 

"  Two-and-twenty  years  my  parents  lived  happily  together, 
when  I,  being  at  the  time  about  eighteen  hours'  journey  from 
home,  received  a  letter  from  my  father  informing  me  that  she 
was  ill  —  that  he  hoped  for  her  speedy  amendment  —  but  that 
if  she  grew  worse  he  would  send  a  horse  to  fetch  me  home  to 
see  her.  I  was  extremely  busy  at  that  time,  and  therefore 
waited  for  further  intelligence  ;  and  as  several  days  elapsed 
without  any  reaching  me,  I  trusted  my  mother  was  convales- 
cent. One  night,  feeling  myself  unwell,  I  had  lain  down  on  the 
bed  with  my  clothes  on  to  take  a  little  rest.    It  was  between 


APPARITIONS. 


201 


11  and  12  o'clock,  and  I  had  not  been  asleep,  when  some  one 
knocked  at  the  door,  and  my  mother  entered,  dressed  as  she 
usually  was.  She  saluted  me,  and  said  :  1  We  shall  see  each 
other  no  more  in  this  world  :  but  I  have  an  injunction  to  give 

you.    I  have  given  that  key  to  R          (naming  a  servant  we 

then  had),  and  she  will  remit  it  to  you.  Keep  it  carefully, 
or  throw  it  into  the  water,  but  never  let  your  father  see  it  —  it 
would  trouble  him.  Farewell,  and  walk  virtuously  through 
life.'  And  with  these  words  she  turned  and  quitted  the  room 
by  the  door,  as  she  had  entered  it.  I  immediately  arose, 
called  up  my  people,  expressed  my  apprehension  that  my 
mother  was  dead,  and,  without  further  delay,  started  for  home. 

As  I  approached  the  house,  R  ,  the  maid,  came  out  and 

informed  me  that  my  mother  had  expired  between  the  hours 
of  11  and  12  on  the  preceding  night.  As  there  was  another 
person  present  at  the  moment,  she  said  nothing  further  to  me 
but  she  took  an  early  opportunity  of  remitting  me  the  key 
saying  that  my  mother  had  given  it  to  her  just  before  she  ex 
pired,  desiring  her  to  place  it  in  my  hands,  with  an  injunction 
that  I  should  keep  it  carefully,  or  fling  it  into  the  water,  so  thai 
my  father  might  never  know  anything  about  it.  I  took  the 
key,  kept  it  for  some  years,  and  at  length  threw  it  into  the 
Lahne." 

I  am  aware  that  it  may  be  objected  by  those  who  believe  in 
wraiths,  but  in  no  other  kind  of  apparition,  that  this  phenomenon 
occurred  before  the  death  of  the  lady,  and  that  it  was  produced 
by  her  energetie  anxiety  with  regard  to  the  key.  It  may  be 
so,  or  it  may  not ;  but,  at  all  events,  we  see  in  this  case  how  a 
comparatively  trifling  uneasiness  may  disturb  a  dying  person, 
and  how,  therefore  —  if  memory  remains  to  them  —  they  may 
carry  it  with  them,  and  seek,  by  such  means  as  they  have,  to 
obtain  relief  from  it. 

A  remarkable  instance  of  anxiety  for  the  welfare  of  those  left 
behind,  is  exhibited  in  the  following  story,  which  I  received 

from  a  member  of  the  family  concerned  :  Mrs.  R  ,  a  lady 

very  well  connected,  lost  her  husband  when  in  the  prime  of 
life,  and  found  herself  with  fourteen  children,  unprovided  for,. 

9* 


202 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


The  overwhelming  nature  of  the  calamity  depressed  her  ener- 
gies to  such  a  degree  as  to  render  her  incapable  of  those  exer- 
tions which  could  alone  redeem  them  from  ruin.  The  flood 
of  misfortune  seemed  too  strong  for  her,  and  she  yielded  to  it 
without  resistance.  She  had  thus  given  way  to  despondency 
some  time,  when  one  day,  as  she  was  sitting  alone,  the  door 
opened,  and  her  mother,  who  had  been  a  considerable  time 
dead,  entered  the  room  and  addressed  her,  reproving  her  for 
this  weak  indulgence  of  useless  sorrow,  and  bidding  her  exert 
herself  for  the  sake  of  her  children.  From  that  period  she 
threw  off  the  depression,  set  actively  to  work  to  promote  the 
fortunes  of  her  family,  and  succeeded  so  well  that  they  ulti- 
mately emerged  from  all  their  difficulties.  I  asked  the  gentle- 
man who  related  this  circumstance  to  me  whether  he  Kelieved 
it.  He  answered,  that  he  could  only  assure  me  that  she  her- 
self affirmed  the  fact,  and  that  she  avowedly  attributed  the  sud- 
den change  in  her  character  and  conduct  to  this  cause;  —  for 
his  own  part,  he  did  not  know  what  to  say,  finding  it  difficult 
to  believe  in  the  possibility  of  such  a  visit  from  the  dead. 

A  somewhat  similar  instance  is  related  by  Dr.  Kerner,  which 
he  says  he  received  from  the  party  himself,  a  man  of  sense  and 

probity.    This  gentleman,  Mr.  F  ,  at  an  early  age  lost  his 

mother.  Two-and-twenty  years  afterward  he  formed  an  at- 
tachment to  a  young  person,  whose  hand  he  resolved  to  ask  in 
marriage.  Having  one  evening  seated  himself  at  his  desk,  for 
the  purpose  of  writing  his  proposal,  he  was  amazed,  on  acci- 
dentally lifting  his  eyes  from  the  paper,  to  see  his  mother,  look- 
ing exactly  as  if  alive,  seated  opposite  to  him,  while  she,  raising 
her  finger  with  a  warning  gesture,  said :  "  Do  not  that  thing!" 

Not  the  least  alarmed,  Mr.  F  started  up  to  approach  her, 

whereupon  she  disappeared.  Being  very  much  attached  to  the 
lady,  however,  he  did  not  feel  disposed  to  follow  her  counsel ; 
but  having  read  the  letter  to  his  father,  who  highly  approved 
of  the  match  and  laughed  at  the  ghost,  he  returned  to  his  cham- 
ber to  seal  it ;  when,  while  he  was  adding  the  superscription, 
she  again  appeared  as  before  and  reiterated  her  injunction. 
But  love  conquered ;  the  letter  was  despatched,  the  marriage 


APPARITIONS. 


203 


ensued,  arid,  after  ten  years  of  strife  and  unhappiness,  was 
dissolved  by  a  judicial  process. 

A  remarkable  circumstance  occurred  about  forty  years  ago, 
in  the  family  of  Dr.  Paulus,  at  Stuttgard.  The  wife  of  the 
head  of  the  family  having  died,  they,  wilh  some  of  their  con- 
nections,, were  sitting  at  table  a  few  days  afterward,  in  the  room 
adjoining  that  in  which  the  corpse  lay;  suddenly  the  door  of  the 
latter  apartment  opened,  and  the  figure  of  the  mother  clad  in 
white  robes  entered,  and,  saluting  them  as  she  passed,  walked 
slowly  and  noiselessly  through  the  room,  and  then  disappeared 
again  through  the  door  by  which  she  had  entered.  The  whole 
company  saw  the  apparition  ;  b»t  the  father,  who  was  at  that 
time  quite  in  health,  died  eight  days  afterward. 

Madame  R          had  promised  an  old  wood-cutter — who 

had  a  particular  horror  of  dying  in  the  poor-house,  because  he 
knew  his  body  would  be  given  to  the  surgeons  —  that  she  would 
take  care  to  see  him  properly  interred.  The  old  man  lived 
some  years  afterward,  and  she  had  quite  lost  sight  of  him,  and 
indeed  forgotten  the  circumstance,  when  she  was  one  night 
awakened  by  the  sound  of  some  one  cutting  wood  in  her  bed- 
chamber ;  and  so  perfect  was  the  imitation,  that  she  heard 
every  log  flung  aside  as  separated.  She  started  up,  exclaim- 
ing, "The  old  man  must  be  dead!"  and  so  it  proved,  —  his 

last  anxiety  having  been  that  Madame  R  should  remember 

her  promise. 

That  our  interest  in  whatever  has  much  concerned  us  in  this 
life  accompanies  us  beyond  the  grave,  seems  to  be  proved  by 
many  stories  I  meet  with,  and  the  following  is  of  undoubted 
authenticity :  Some  years  ago,  a  music-master  died  at  Erfert 
at  the  age  of  seventy.  He  was  a  miser,  and  had  never  looked 
with  very  friendly  eyes  on  Professor  Rinck,  the  composer,  who 
he  knew  was  likely  to  succeed  to  his  classes.  The  old  man 
had  lived  and  died  in  an  apartment  adjoining  the  class-room ; 
and  the  first  day  that  Rinck  entered  on  his  office,  while  the 
scholars  were  singing  Aus  der  tiefe  ruf  ich  dick,  which  is  a 
paraphrase  of  the  De  profundis,  he  thought  he  saw,  through  a 
hole  or  bull's  eye  in  the  door,  something  moving  about  the  inner 


204  THE  IVIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 

chamber.  As  the  room  was  void  of  every  kind  of  furniture, 
and  nobody  could  possibly  be  in  it,  Rinck  looked  more  fixedly, 
when  he  distinctly  saw  a  shadow,  whose  movements  were  ac- 
companied by  a  strange  rustling  sound.  Perplexed  at  the  cir- 
cumstance, he  told  his  pupils  that  on  the  following  day  he 
should  require  them  to  repeat  the  same  choral.  They  did  go ; 
and  while  they  were  singing,  Rinck  saw  a  person  walking  back- 
ward and  forward  in  the  next  room,  who  frequently  approached 
the  hole  in  the  door.  Very  much  struck  with  so  extraordinary 
a  circumstance,  Rinck  had  the  choral  repeated  on  the  ensuing 
day,  —  and  this  time  his  suspicions  were  fully  confirmed  ;  the 
old  man,  his  predecessor,  approaching  the  door,  and  gazing 
steadfastly  into  the  class-room.  "His  face,"  said  Rinck — in 
relating  the  story  to  Dr.  Mainzer,  who  has  obligingly  furnished 
it  to  me  as  entered  in  his  journal  at  the  time  —  "  was  of  an  ashy- 
gray.  The  apparition,"  he  added,  "  never  more  appeared  to 
me,  although  I  frequently  had  the  choral  repeated." 

"  I  am  no  believer  in  ghost-stories,"  he  added,  "  nor  in  the 
least  superstitious ;  nevertheless,  I  can  not  help  admitting  that 
I  have  seen  this  :  it  is  impossible  for  me  ever  to  doubt  or  to 
deny  that  which  I  know  I  saw." 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  FUTURE  THAT  AWAITS  US. 

In  all  ages  of  the  world,  and  in  all  parts  of  it,  mankind  have 
earnestly  desired  to  learn  the  fate  that  awaited  them  when  they 
had  "  shuffled  off  this  mortal  coil;"  and  those  pretending  to  be 
their  instructors  have  built  up  different  systems  which  have 
stood  in  the  stead  of  knowledge,  and  more  or  less  satisfied  the 
bulk  of  the  people.  The  interest  on  this  subject  is,  at  the  pres- 
ent period,  in  the  most  highly  civilized  portions  of  the  globe, 
less  than  it  has  been  at  any  preceding  one.    The  great  propor- 


THE  FUTURE  THAT  AWAITS  US. 


205 


tion  of  us  live  for  this  world  alone,  and  think  very  little  of  the 
next :  we  are  in  too  great  a  hurry  of  pleasure  or  business  to 
bestow  any  time  on  a  subject  of  which  we  have  such  vague 
notions  —  notions  so  vague,  that,  in  short,  we  can  scarcely  by 
any  effort  of  the  imagination  bring  the  idea  home  to  ourselves  ; 
and  when  we  are  about  to  die,  we  are  seldom  in  a  situation  to 
do  more  than  resign  ourselves  to  what  is  inevitable,  and  blindly 
meet  our  fate  ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  what  is  generally  called 
the  religious  world  is  so  engrossed  by  its  struggles  for  power 
and  money,  or  by  its  sectarian  disputes  and  enmities,  and  so 
narrowed  and  circumscribed  by  dogmatic  orthodoxies,  that  it 
has  neither  inclination  nor  liberty  to  turn  back  or  look  around, 
and  endeavor  to  gather  up  from  past  records  and  present  ob- 
servation such  hints  as  are  now  and  again  dropped  in  our  path, 
to  give  us  an  intimation  of  what  the  truth  may  be.  The  ration- 
alistic age,  too,  out  of  which  we  are  only  just  emerging,  and  «. 
which  succeeded  one  of  gross  superstition,  having  settled,  be- 
yond appeal,  that  there  never  was  such  a  thing  as  a  ghost  — 
that  the  dead  never  do  come  back  to  tell  us  the  secrets  of  their 
prison-house,  and  that  nobody  believes  such  idle  tales  but  chil- 
dren and  old  women — seemed  to  have  shut  the  door  against 
the  only  channel  through  which  any  information  could  be  sought. 
Revelation  tells  us  very  little  on  this  subject — reason  can  tell 
us  nothing ;  and  if  Nature  is  equally  silent,  or  if  we  are  to  be 
deterred  from  questioning  her  from  the  fear  of  ridicule,  there 
is  certainly  no  resource  left  us  but  to  rest  contented  in  our  igno- 
rance, and  each  wait  till  the  awful  secret  is  disclosed  to  our- 
selves. 

A  great  many  things  have  been  pronounced  untrue  and  ab- 
surd, and  even  impossible,  by  the  highest  authorities  of  the  age 
in  which  they  lived,  which  have  afterward,  and  indeed  within  a 
very  short  period,  been  found  to  be  both  possible  and  true.  I 
confess  myself,  for  one,  to  have  no  respect  whatever  for  these 
dogmatic  denials  and  affirmations,  and  I  am  quite  of  opinion 
that  vulgar  incredulity  is  a  much  more  contemptible  thing  than 
vulgar  credulity.  We  know  very  little  of  what  is,  and  still 
less  of  what  may  be  ;  and  till  a  thing  has  been  proved,  by  indue- 


206 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


tion,  logically  impossible,  we  have  no  right  whatever  to  pro- 
nounce that  it  is  so.  As  I  have  said  before,  a  priori  conclu- 
sions are  perfectly  worthless ;  and  the  sort  of  investigation  that 
is  bestowed  upon  subjects  of  the  class  of  which  I  am  treatiug, 
something  worse  —  inasmuch  as  they  deceive  the  timid  and  the 
ignorant,  and  that  very  numerous  class  which  pins  its  faith  on 
authority  and  never  ventures  to  think  for  itself,  by  an  assump- 
tion of  wisdom  and  knowledge,  which,  if  examined  and  analyzed, 
would  very  frequently  prove  to  be  nothing  more  respectable 
than  obstinate  prejudice  and  rash  assertion. 

For  my  own  part,  I  repeat,  I  insist  upon  nothing.  The  opin- 
ions I  have  formed,  from  the  evidence  collected,  may  be  quite 
erroneous ;  if  so,  as  I  seek  only  the  truth,  I  shall  be  glad  to  be 
undeceived,  and  shall  be  quite  ready  to  accept  a  better  expla- 
nation of  these  facts,  whenever  it  is  offered  to  me :  but  it  is  in 
» vain  to  tell  me  that  this  explanation  is  to  be  found  in  what  is 
called  imagination,  or  in  a  morbid  state  of  the  nerves,  or  an  un- 
usual excitement  of  the  organs  of  color  and  form,  or  in  im- 
posture ;  or  in  all  these  together.  The  existence  of  all  such 
sources  of  error  and  delusion  I  am  far  from  denying,  but  I  find 
instances  that  it  is  quite  impossible  to  reduce  under  any  one  of 
those  categories,  as  we  at  present  understand  them.  The  mul- 
tiplicity of  these  instances,  too — for,  not  to  mention  the  large 
number  that  are  never  made  known  or  carefully  concealed,  if  I 
were  to  avail  myself  liberally  of  cases  already  recorded  in  vari- 
ous works,  many  of  which  1  know,  and  many  others  I  hear  of 
as  existing,  but  which  I  can  not  conveniently  get  access  to,  I 
might  fill  volumes  (German  literature  abounds  in  them) — the 
number  of  the  examples,  I  repeat,  even  on  the  supposition  that 
they  are  not  facts,  would  of  itself  form  the  subject  of  a  very 
curious  physiological  or  psychological  inquiry.  If  so  many 
people  in  respectable  situations  of  life,  and  in  apparently  a  nor- 
mal state  of  health,  are  capable  of  either  such  gross  impostures, 
or  the  subjects  of  such  extraordinary  spectral  illusions,  it  would 
certainly  be  extremely  satisfactory  to  learn  something  of  the 
conditions  that  induce  these  phenomena  in  such  abundance ; 
and  all  I  expect  from  my  book  at  present  is,  to  induce  a  suspi- 


THE  FUTURE  THAT  AWAITS  US. 


207 


cion  that  we  are  not  quite  so  wise  as  we  think  ourselves ;  and 
that  it  might  be  worth  while  to  inquire  a  little  seriously  into 
reports,  which  may  perchance  turn  out  to  have  a  deeper  inter- 
est for  us  than  all  those  various  questions,  public  and  private, 
put  together,  with  which  we  are  daily  agitating  ourselves. 

I  have  alluded,  in  an  earlier  part  of  this  work,  to  the  belief 
entertained  by  the  ancients  that  the  souls  of  men,  on  being  dis- 
engaged from  the  bodies,  passed  into  a  middle  state,  called 
Hades,  in  which  their  portions  seemed  to  be  neither  that  of 
complete  happiness  nor  of  insupportable  misery.  They  retained 
their  personality,  their  human  form,  their  memory  of  the  past, 
and  their  interest  in  those  that  had  been  dear  to  them  on  earth. 
Communications  were  occasionally  made  by  the  dead  to  the 
living :  they  mourned  over  their  duties  neglected  and  their 
errors  committed  ;  many  of  their  mortal  feelings,  passions,  and 
propensities,  seemed  to  survive  ;  and  they  sometimes  sought  to 
repair,  through  the  instrumentality  of  the  living,  the  injuries 
they  had  formerly  inflicted.  In  short,  death  was  merely  a  tran- 
sition from  one  condition  of  life  to  another ;  but  in  this  latter 
state,  although  we  do  not  see  them  condemned  to  undergo  any 
torments,  we  perceive  that  they  are  not  happy.  There  are, 
indeed,  compartments  in  this  dark  region  :  there  is  Tartarus 
for  the  wicked,  and  the  Elysian  fields  for  the  good,  but  they  are 
comparatively  thinly  peopled.  It  is  in  the  mid  region  that  these 
pale  shades  abound,  consistently  with  the  fact  that  here  on  earth, 
moral  as  well  as  intellectual  mediocrity  is  the  rule,  and  extremes 
of  good  or  evil  the  exceptions. 

With  regard  to  the  opinion  entertained  of  a  future  state  by 
the  Hebrews,  the  Old  Testament  gives  us  very  little  informa- 
tion ;  but  what  glimpses  we  do  obtain  of  it  appear  to  exhibit 
notions  analogous  to  those  of  the  heathen  nations,  inasmuch  as 
that  the  personality  and  the  form  seem  to  be  retained,  and  the 
possibility  of  these  departed  spirits  revisiting  the  earth  and  hold- 
ing commune  with  the  living  is  admitted.  The  request  of  the 
rich  man,  also,  that  Lazarus  might  be  sent  to  warn  his  brethren, 
yet  alive,  of  his  own  miserable  condition,  testifies  to  the  exist- 
ence of  these  opinions ;  and  it  is  worthy  of  remark  that  the 


203 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


favor  is  denied,  not  because  its  performance  is  impossible,  but 
because  the  mission  would  be  unavailing  —  a  prediction  which, 
it  appears  to  me,  time  has  singularly  justified. 

Altogether,  the  notion  that  in  the  state  entered  upon  after  we 
leave  this  world,  the  personality  and  form  are  retained,  that 
these  shades  sometimes  revisit  the  earth,  and  that  the  memory 
of  the  past  still  survives,  seems  to  be  universal ;  for  it  is  found 
to  exist  among  all  people,  savage  and  civilized :  and  if  not 
founded  on  observation  and  experience,  it  becomes  difficult  to 
account  for  such  unanimity  on  a  subject  which  I  think,  specu- 
latively considered,  would  not  have  been  productive  of  such 
results  ;  and  one  proof  of  this  is,  that  those  who  reject  such 
testimony  and  tradition  as  we  have  in  regard  to  it,  and  rely 
only  on  their  own  understandings,  appear  to  be  pretty  uniformly 
led  to  form  opposite  conclusions.  They  can  not  discern  the 
mode  of  such  a  phenomenon ;  it  is  open  to  all  sorts  of  scientific 
objections,  and  the  cui  bono  sticks  in  their  teeth. 

This  position  being  admitted,  as.  I  think  it  must  be,  we  have 
but  one  resource  left,  whereby  to  account  for  the  universality 
of  this  persuasion  —  which  is,  that  in  all  periods  and  places,  both 
mankind  and  womankind,  as  well  in  health  as  in  sickness,  have 
been  liable  to  a  series  of  spectral  illusions  of  a  most  extraordi- 
nary and  complicated  nature,  and  bearing  such  a  remarkable 
similarity  to  each  other  in  regard  to  the  objects  supposed  to  be 
seen  or  heard,  that  they  have  been  universally  led  to  the  same 
erroneous  interpretation  of  the  phenomenon.  It  is  manifestly 
not  impossible  that  this  may  be  the  case ;  and  if  it  be  so,  it  be- 
comes the  business  of  physiologists  to  inquire  info  the  matter, 
and  give  us  some  account  of  it.  In  the  meantime,  we  may  be 
permitted  to  take  the  other  view  of  the  question,  and  exa/nine 
what  probabilities  seem  to  be  in  its  favor. 

When  the  body  is  about  to  die,  that  which  can  not  die,  and 
which,  to  spare  words,  I  will  call  the  soul,  departs  from  it — 
whither]  We  do  not  know:  but,  in  the  first  place,  we  have 
no  reason  to  believe  that  the  space  destined  for  its  habitation  is 
far  removed  from  the  earth,  since,  knowing  nothing  about  it, 
we  are  equally  entitled  to  suppose  tfye  contrary ;  and,  in  the 


THE  FUTURE  THAT  AWAITS  US. 


209 


next,  that  which  we  call  distance  is  a  conditioi  that  merely 
regards  material  objects,  and  of  which  a  spirit  is  quite  indepen- 
dent, just  as  our  thoughts  are,  which  can  travel  from  here  to 
China,  and  back  again,  in  a  second  of  time. 

Well,  then,  supposing  this  being  to  exist  somewhere  —  and  it 
is  not  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  the  souls  of  the  inhabitants 
of  each  planet  continue  to  hover  within  the  sphere  of  that  planet, 
to  which,  for  anything  we  can  tell,  they  may  be  attached  by  a 
magnetic  attraction  —  supposing  it  to  find  itself  in  space,  free 
of  the  body,  endowed  with  the  memory  of  the  past,  and  conse- 
quently with  a  consciousness  of  its  own  deserts,  able  to  perceive 
that  which  we  do  not  ordinarily  perceive,  namely,  those  who 
have  passed  into  a  similar  state  with  itself — will  it  not  naturally 
seek  its  place  among  those  spirits  which  most  resemble  itself, 
and  with  whom,  therefore,  it  must  have  the  most  affinity  1  On 
earth,  the  good  seek  the  good,  and  the  wicked  the  wicked  :  and 
the  axiom  that  "  like  associates  with  like,"  we  can  not  doubt 
will  be  as  true  hereafter  as  now.  "  In  my  Father's  house  there 
are  many  mansions,"  and  our  intuitive  sense  of  what  is  fit  and 
just  must  needs  assure  us  that  this  is  so.  There  are  too  many 
degrees  of  moral  worth  and  of  moral  unworth  among  mankind, 
to  permit  of  our  supposing  that  justice  could  be  satisfied  by  an 
abrupt  division  into  two  opposite  classes.  On  the  contrary, 
there  must  be  infinite  shades  of  desert ;  and,  as  we  must  con- 
sider that  that  which  a  spirit  enters  into  on  leaving  the  body  is 
not  so  much  a  place  as  a  condition.,  so  there  must  be  as  many 
degrees  of  happiness  or  suffering  as  there  are  individuals,  each 
carrying  with  him  his  own  heaven  or  bell.  For  it  is  a  vulgar 
notion  to  imagine  that  heaven  and  hell  are  places ;  they  are 
states  ;  and  it  is  in  ourselves  we  must  look  for  both.  When  we 
leave  the  body,  we  carry  them  with  us  :  "  As  the  tree  falls,  so 
it  shall  lie."  The  soul  which  here  has  wallowTed  in  wickedness 
or  been  sunk  in  sensuality,  will  not  be  suddenly  purified  by  the 
death  of  the  body  :  its  moral  condition  remains  what  its  earthly 
sojourn  has  trained  it  to,  but  its  means  of  indulging  its  propen- 
sities are  lost.  If  it  has  had  no  godly  aspirations  here,  it  will 
not  be  drawn  to  God  there ;  and  if  it  has  so  bound  itself  to  the 


210 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE, 


body  that  it  has  known  no  happiness  but  that  to  which  the  body 
ministered,  it  will  be  incapable  of  happiness  when  deprived  of 
that  enjoyment.  Here  we  see  at  once  what  a  variety  of  condi- 
tions must  necessarily  ensue  —  how  many  comparatively  nega- 
tive states  there  must  be  between  those  of  positive  happiness 
or  positive  misery ! 

We  may  thus  conceive  how  a  soul,  on  entering  upon  this 
new  condition,  must  find  its  own  place  or  state ;  if  its  thoughts 
and  aspirations  here  have  been  heavenward,  and  its  pursuits 
noble,  its  conditions  will  be  heavenly.  The  contemplation  of 
God's  works,  seen  not  as  by  our  mortal  eyes,  but  in  their 
beauty  and  their  truth  and  ever-glowing  sentiments  of  love  and 
gratitude  —  and,  for  aught  we  know,  good  offices  to  souls  in 
need  —  would  constitute  a  suitable  heaven  or  happiness  for  such 
a  being ;  an  incapacity  for  such  pleasures,  and  the  absence  of 
all  others,  would  constitute  a  negative  state,  in  which  the  chief 
suffering  would  consist  in  mournful  regrets  and.  a  vague  long- 
ing for  something  better,  which  the  untrained  soul,  that  never 
lifted  itself  from  the  earth,  knows  not  how  to  seek ;  while  ma- 
lignant passions  and  unquenchable  desires  would  constitute- the 
appropriate  hell  of  the  wicked ;  for  we  must  remember,  that 
although  a  spirit  is  independent  of  those  physical  laws  which 
are  the  conditions  of  matter,  the  moral  law,  which  is  indestruc- 
tible, belongs  peculiarly  to  it  —  that  is,  to  the  spirit — and  is 
inseparable  from  it. 

We  must  next  remember,  that  this  earthly  body  we  inhabit 
is  more  or  less  a  mask,  by  means  of  which  we  conceal  from 
each  other  those  thoughts,  which,  if  constantly  exposed,  would 
unfit  us  for  living  in  community;  but  when  we  die,  this  mnsk 
falls  away,  and  the  truth  shows  nakedly :  there  is  no  more  dis- 
guise ;  we  appear  as  we  are  —  spirits  of  light,  or  spirits  of  dark- 
ness ; —  and  there  can  be  no  difficulty,  I  should  think,  in  con- 
ceiving this,  since  we  know  that  even  our  present  opaque  and 
comparatively  inflexible  features,  in  spite  of  all  efforts  to  the 
contrary,  will  be  the  index  of  the  mind  ;  and  that  the  expres- 
sion of  the  face  is  gradually  moulded  to  the  fashion  of  the 
thoughts.    How  much  more  must  this  be  the  case  with  the 


THE  FUTURE  THAT  AWAITS  US. 


211 


fluent  and  diaphanous  body  which  we  expect  is  to  succeed  the 
fleshly  one  ! 

Thus,  I  think,  we  have  arrived  at  forming  some  conception 
of  the  state  that  awaits  us  hereafter :  the  indestructible  mora] 
law  fixes  our  place  or  condition;  affinity  governs  our  associa- 
tions ;  and  the  mask  under  which  we  conceal  ourselves  having 
fallen  away,  we  appear  to  each  other  as  we  are  ;  —  and  I  must 
here  observe,  that  in  this  last  circumstance  must  be  comprised 
one  very  important  element  of  happiness  or  misery ;  for  the 
love  of  the  pure  spirits  for  each  other  will  be  for  ever  excited, 
by  simply  beholding  that  beauty  and  brightness  which  will  be 
the  inalienable  expression  of  their  goodness  ;  —  while  the  re- 
verse will  be  the  case  with  the  spirits  of  darkness ;  for  no  one 
loves  wickedness,  in  either  themselves  or  others,  however  we 
may  practise  it.  We  must  also  understand,  that  the  words 
"dark"  and  "light" — which,  in  this  world  of  appearance,  we 
use  metaphorically  to  express  good  and  evil  —  must  be  under- 
stood literally  when  speaking  of  that  other  world  where  every- 
thing will  be  seen  as  it  is.  Goodness  is  truth,  and  truth  is 
light — and  wickedness  is  falsehood,  and  falsehood  is  darkness  ; 
and  so  it  will  be  seen  to  be.  Those  who  have  not  the  light  of 
truth  to  guide  them,  will  wander  darkly  through  this  valley  of 
the  shadow  of  death ;  those  in  whom  the  light  of  goodness 
Bhines  will  dwell  in  the  light,  which  is  inherent  in  themselves. 
The  former  will  be  in  the  kingdom  of  darkness  —  the  latter  in 
the  kingdom  of  light.  All  the  records  existing  of  the  blessed 
spirits  that  have  appeared,  ancient  or  modern,  exhibit  them  as 
robed  in  light,  while  their  anger  or  sorrow  is  symbolized  by 
their  darkness.  Now,  there  appears  to  me#nothing  incompre- 
hensible in  this  view  of  the  future ;  on  the  contrary,  it  is  the 
only  one  which  I  ever  found  myself  capable  of  conceiving  or 
reconciling  with  the  justice  and  mercy  of  our  Creator.  He 
does  not  punish  us  —  we  punish  ourselves  :  we  have  built  up  a 
heaven  or  a  hell  to  our  own  liking,  and  we  carry  it  with  us. 
The  fire  that  for  ever  burns  without  consuming,  is  the  fiery  evil 
in  which  we  have  chosen  our  part ;  and  the  heaven  in  which 
we  shall  dwell,  will  be  the  heavenly  peace  which  will  dwell  in 


212 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


us.  We  are  our  own  judges  and  our  own  chastisers.  And 
here  I  must  say  a  few  words  on  the  subject  of  that  apparently 
(to  us)  preternatural  memory  which  is  developed  under  certain 
circumstances,  and  to  which  1  alluded  in  a  former  chapter. 
Every  one  will  have  heard  that  persons  who  have  been  drowned 
and  recovered,  have  had  —  in  what  would  have  been  their  last 
moments,  if  no  means  had  been  used  to  revive  them — a  strange 
vision  of  the  past,  in  which  their  whole  life  seemed  to  float  be- 
fore ttiem  in  review  ;  and  I  have  heard  of  the  same  phenomenon 
taking  place,  in  moments  of  impending  death,  in  other  forms. 
Now,  as  it  is  not  during  the  struggle  for  life,  but  immediately 
before  insensibility  ensues,  that  this  vision  occurs,  it  must  be 
the  act  of  a  moment ;  and  this  renders  incomprehensible  to  us 
what  is  said  by  the  seeress  of  Prevorst,  and  other  somnambules 
of  the  highest  order,  namely,  that  the  instant  the  soul  is  freed 
from  the  body,  it  sees  its  whole  earthly  career  in  a  single  sign : 
it  knows  that  it  is  good  or  evil,  and  pronounces  its  own  sen- 
tence. The  extraordinary  memory  occasionally  exhibited  in 
sickness,  where  the  link  between  the  soul  and  the  body  is  prob- 
ably loosened,  shows  us  an  adumbration  of  this  faculty. 

But  this  self-pronounced  sentence  we  are  led  to  hope  is  not 
final ;  nor  does  it  seem  consistent  with  the  love  and  mercy  of 
God  that  it  should  be  so.  There  must  be  few,  indeed,  who 
leave  this  earth  fit  for  heaven ;  for,  although  the  immediate 
frame  of  mind  in  which  dissolution  takes  place  is  probably 
very  important,  it  is  surely  a  pernicious  error,  encouraged  by 
jail  chaplains  and  philanthropists,  that  a  late  repentance  and  a 
few  parting  prayers  can  purify  a  soul  sullied  by  years  of  wick- 
edness. Would  we  at  once  receive  such  a  one  into  our  inti- 
mate communion  and  love  ?  Should  we  not  require  time  for 
the  stains  of  vice  to  be  washed  away  and  habits  of  virtue  to  be 
formed?  Assuredly  we  should!  And  how  can  we  imagine 
that  the  purity  of  heaven  is  to  be  sullied  by  that  approximation 
which  the  purity  of  earth  would  forbid  ]  It  would  be  cruel  to 
say,  and  irrational  to  think,  that  this  late  repentance  is  of  no 
avail ;  it  is  doubtless  so  far  of  avail,  that  the  straining  upward 
and  the  heavenly  aspirations  of  the  parting  soul  are  carried 


THE  FUTURE  THAT  AWAITS  US. 


213 


with  it,  so  that  when  it  is  free,  instead  of  choosing  the  darkness 
it  will  flee  to  as  much  light  as  is  in  itself,  and  be  ready,  through 
the  mercy  of  God  and  the  ministering  of  brighter  spirits,  to 
receive  more.  But  in  this  case,  as  also  in  the  innumerable  in- 
stances of  those  who  die  in  what  may  be  called  a  negative  state, 
the  advance  must  be  progressive ;  though,  wherever  the  desire 
exists,  I  must  believe  that  this  advance  is  possible.  If  not, 
wherefore  did  Christ,  after  being  "put  to  death  in  the  flesh," 
go  and  "  preach  to  the  spirits  in  prison"  ?  It  would  have 
been  a  mockery  to  preach  salvation  to  those  who  had  no  hope ; 
nor  would  they,  having  no  hope,  have  listened  to  the  preacher. 

I  think  these  views  are  at  once  cheering,  encouraging,  and 
beautiful ;  and  I  can  not  but  believe,  that  were  they  more  gen- 
erally entertained  and  more  intimately  conceived,  they  would 
be  very  beneficial  in  their  effects.  As  I  have  said  before,  the 
extremely  vague  notions  people  have  of  a  future  life  prevent 
the  possibility  of  its  exercising  any  great  influence  upon  the 
present.  The  picture,  on  one  side,  is  too  revolting  and  incon- 
sistent with  our  ideas  of  Divine  goodness  to  be  deliberately 
accepted ;  while,  with  regard  to  the  other,  our  feelings  some- 
what resemble  those  of  a  little  girl  I  once  knew,  who,  being 
told  by  her  mother  what  was  to  be  the  reward  of  goodness  if 
she  were  so  happy  as  to  reach  heaven,  put  her  finger  in  her 
eye  and  began  to  cry,  exclaiming,  "  Oh,  mamma,  how  tired 
I  shall  be  singing !" 

The  question  which  will  now  naturally  arise,  and  which  I  am 
bound  to  answer,  is,  How  have  these  views  been  formed  ?  and 
what  is  the  authority  for  them  ?  And  the  answer  I  have  to  make 
will  startle  many  minds  when  I  say,  that  they  have  been  gath- 
ered from  two  sources  ;  first  and  chiefly  from  the  state  in  which 
those  spirits  appear  to  be,  and  sometimes  avow  themselves  to 
be,  who,  after  quitting  the  earth,  return  to  it  and  make  them- 
selves visible  to  the  living ;  and,  secondly,  from  the  revelations 
of  numerous  somnambules  of  the  highest  order,  which  entirely 
conform  in  all  cases,  not  only  with  the  revelations  of  the  dead, 
but  with  each  other.  I  do  not  mean  to  imply,  when  I  say  this, 
that  I  consider  the  question  finally  settled  as  to  whether  som- 


214 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


narabules  are  really  clear-seers  or  only  visionaries ;  nor  that  I 
have  by  any  means  established  the  fact  that  the  dead  do  some- 
times actually  return  ;  but  I  am  obliged  to  beg  the  question  for 
the  moment,  since,  whether  these  sources  be  pure  or  impure,  it 
is  from  them  the  information  has  been  collected.  It  is  true 
that  these  views  are  extremely  conformable  with  those  enter- 
tained by  Plato  and  his  school  of  philosophers,  and  also  with 
those  of  the  mystics  of  a  later  age ;  but  the  latter  certainly,  and 
the  former  probably,  built  up  their  systems  on  the  same  founda- 
tion ;  and  I  am  very  far  from  using  the  term  mystics  in  the  op- 
probious,  or  at  least  contemptuous,  tone  in  which  it  has  of  late 
years  been  uttered  in  this  country ;  for,  although  abounding  in 
errors,  as  regarded  the  concrete,  and  although  their  want  of  an 
inductive  methodology  led  them  constantly  astray  in  the  region 
of  the  real,  they  were  sublime  teachers  in  that  of  the  ideal ;  and 
they  seem  to  have  been  endowed  with  a  wonderful  insight  into 
this  veiled  department  of  our  nature. 

It  may  be  here  objected,  that  we  only  admire  their  insight, 
because,  being  in  entire  ignorance  of  the  subject  of  it,  we 
accept  raving  for  revelation  ;  and  that  no  weight  can  be  attached 
to  the  conformity  of  later  disclosures  with  theirs,  since  they 
have  no  doubt  been  founded  upon  them.  As  to  the  ignorance, 
it  is  admitted  ;  and,  simply  looking  at  their  views,  as  they  stand, 
they  have  nothing  to  support  them  but  their  sublimity  and  con- 
sistency ;  but,  as  regards  the  value  of  the  evidence  afforded  by 
conformity,  it  rests  on  very  different  grounds  ;  for  the  reporters 
from  whom  we  collect  our  intelligence  are,  with  very  few  ex- 
ceptions, those  of  whom  we  may  safely  predicate,  that  they 
were  wholly  unacquainted  with  the  systems  promulgated  by  the 
Platonic  philosophers,  or  the  mystics  either,  nor,  in  most  instan- 
ces, had  ever  heard  of  their  names  ;  for,  as  regards  that  peculiar 
somnambulic  state  which  is  here  referred  to,  the  subjects  of  it 
appear  to  be  generally  very  young  people  of  either  sex,  and 
chiefly  girls ;  and,  as  regards  ghost-seeing,  although  this  phe- 
nomenon seems  to  have  no  connection  with  the  age  of  the  seer, 
yet  it  is  not  usually  from  the  learned  or  the  cultivated  that  we 
collect  our  cases,  inasmuch  as  the  apprehension  of  ridicule  on 


THE  FUTURE  THAT  AWAITS  US. 


215 


the  one  hand,  and  the  fast  hold  the  doctrine  of  spectral  illusions 
has  taken  of  them  on  the  other,  prevent  their  believing  in  their 
own  senses,  or  producing  any  evidence  they  might  have  to 
furnish. 

And  here  will  be  offered  another  subtle  objection,  namely, 
that  the  testimony  of  such  witnesses  as  I  have  above  described 
is  perfectly  worthless ;  but  this  I  deny.  The  somnambulic 
states  I  allude  to,  are  such  as  have  been  developed,  not  artifi- 
cially, but  naturally  ;  and  often,  under  very  extraordinary  ner- 
vous diseases,  accompanied  with  catalepsy,  and  various  symp- 
toms far  beyond  feigning.  Such  cases  are  rare,  and,  in  this 
country,  seem  to  have  been  very  little  observed,  for  doubtless 
they  must  occur,  and  when  they  do  occur  they  are  very  care- 
fully concealed  by  the  families  of  the  patient,  and  not  followed 
up  or  investigated  as  a  psychological  phenomenon  by  the  physi- 
cian ;  for  it  is  to  be  observed  that,  without  questioning,  no  rev- 
elations are  made ;  they  are  not,  as  far  as  I  know,  ever  sponta- 
neous. I  have  heard  of  two  such  cases  in  this  country,  both 
occurring  in  the  higher  classes,  and  both  patients  being  young 
ladies ;  but,  although  surprising  phenomena  were  exhibited, 
interrogation  was  not  permitted,  and  the  particulars  were  never 
allowed  to  transpire. 

No  doubt  there  are  examples  of  error  and  examples  of  im- 
posture, so  there  are  in  everything  where  room  is  to  be  found 
for  them ;  and  I  am  quite  aware  of  the  propensity  of  hysterical 
patients  to  deceive,  but  it  is  for  the  judicious  observers  to  ex- 
amine the  genuineness  of  each  particular  instance  ;  and  it  is 
perfectly  certain  and  well  established  by  the  German  physiolo- 
gists and  psychologists,  who  have  carefully  studied  the  subject, 
that  there  are  many  above  all  suspicion.  Provided,  then,  that 
the  case  be  genuine,  it  remains  to  be  determined  how  much 
value  is  to  be  attached  to  the  revelations,  for  they  may  be  quite 
honestly  delivered,  and  yet  be  utterly  worthless  —  the  mere 
ravings  of  a  disordered  brain  ;  and  it  is  here  that  conformity 
becomes  important,  for  I  can  not  admit  the  objection  that  the 
simple  circumstance  of  the  patients'  being  diseased  invalidates 
their  evidence  so  entirely  as  to  annul  even  the  value  of  their 


216 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


unanimity,  because,  although  it  is  not  logically  impossible  that 
a  certain  state  of  nervous  derangement  should  occasion  all  som- 
nambules  of  the  class  in  question,  to  make  similar  answers, 
when  interrogated  regarding  a  subject  of  which,  in  their  nor- 
mal condition,  they  know  nothing,  and  on  which  they  have 
never  reflected,  and  that  these  answers  should  be  not  only  con- 
sistent, but  disclosing  far  more  elevated  views  than  are  evolved 
by  minds  of  a  very  superior  order  which  have  reflected  on  it 
very  deeply  —  I  say,  although  this  is  not  logically  impossible,  it 
will  assuredly  be  found,  by  most  persons,  an  hypothesis  of  much 
more  difficult  acceptance  than  the  one  I  propose ;  namely,  that 
whatever  be  the  cause  of  the  effect,  these  patients  are  in  a  state 
of  clear-seeing,  wherein  they  have  "  more  than  mortal  knowl- 
edge that  is,  more  knowledge  than  mortals  possess  in  their 
normal  condition  :  and  it  must  not  be  forgotten,  that  we  have 
some  facts  confessed  by  all  experienced  physicians  and  physiol- 
ogists, even  in  this  country,  proving  that  there  are  states  of  dis- 
ease in  which  preternatural  faculties  have  been  developed,  such 
as  no  theory  has  yet  satisfactorily  accounted  for. 

But  Dr.  Passavent,  who  has  written  a  very  philosophical 
work  on  the  subject  of  vital  magnetism  and  clear-seeing,  asserts, 
that  it  is  an  error  to  imagine  that  the  ecstatic  condition  is  merely 
the  product  of  disease.  He  says,  that  it  has  sometimes  exhib- 
ited itself  in  persons  of  very  vigorous  constitutions,  instancing 
Joan  of  Arc,  a  woman,  whom  historians  have  little  understood, 
and  whose  memory  Voltaire's  detestable  poem  has  ridiculed 
and  degraded,  but  who  was,  nevertheless,  a  great  psychological 
phenomenon. 

The  circumstance,  too,  that  phenomena  of  this  kind  are  more 
frequently  developed  in  women  than  in  men,  and  that  they  are 
merely  the  consequence  of  her  greater  nervous  irritability,  has 
been  made  another  objection  to  them  —  an  objection,  however, 
which  Dr.  Passavent  considers  founded  on  ignorance  of  the  es- 
sential difference  between  the  sexes,  which  is  not  merely  a  phys- 
ical but  a  psychological  one.  Man  is  more  productive  than  re- 
ceptive. In  a  state  of  perfectibility,  both  attributes  would  be 
equally  developed  in  him  ;  but  in  this  terrestrial  life,  only  imper- 


THE  FUTURE  THAT  AWAITS  US. 


217 


feet  phases  of  the  entire  sum  of  the  soul's  faculties  are  so.  Man- 
kind are  but  children,  male  or  female,  young  or  old ;  of  man, 
in  his  totality,  we  have  but  faint  adumbrations,  here  and  there. 

Thus  the  ecstatic  woman  will  be  more  frequently  a  seer,  in- 
stinctive and  intuitive  ;  man,  a  doer  and  a  worker ;  and  as  all 
genius  is  a  degree  of  ecstasy  or  clear-seeing,  we  perceive  the 
reason  wherefore  in  man  it  is  more  productive  than  in  woman, 
and  that  our  greatest  poets  and  artists,  in  all  kinds,  are  of  the 
former  sex,  and  even  the  most  remarkable  women  produce  but 
little  in  science  or  art ;  while  on  the  other  hand,  the  feminine 
instinct,  and  tact,  and  intuitive  seeing  of  truth,  are  frequently 
more  sure  than  the  ripe  and  deliberate  judgment  of  man  ;  and 
it  is  hence  that  solitude  and  such  conditions  as  develop  the  pas- 
sive or  receptive  at  the  expense  of  the  active,  tend  to  produce 
this  state,  and  to  assimilate  the  man  more  to  the  nature  of  the 
woman  ;  while  in  her  they  intensify  these  distinguishing  char- 
acteristics ;  and  this  is  also  the  reason  that  simple  and  childlike 
people  and  races  are  the  most  frequent  subjects  of  these  phe- 
nomena. 

It  is  only  necessary  to  read  Mozart's  account  of  his  own  mo- 
ments of  inspiration,  to  comprehend  not  only  the  similarity,  but 
the  positive  identity,  of  the  ecstatic  state  with  the  state  of  ge- 
nius in  activity.  "  When  all  goes  well  with  me,"  he  says — 
"  when  I  am  in  a  carriage,  or  walking,  or  when  I  can  not  sleep 
at  night,  the  thoughts  come  streaming  in  upon  me  most  fluently : 
whence,  or  how,  is  more  than  I  can  tell.  What  comes,  I  hum  to 
myself  as  it  proceeds.  Then  follow  the  counterpoint  and  the 
clang  of  the  different  instruments;  and,  if  I  am  not  disturbed, 
my  soul  is  fixed,  and  the  thing  grows  greater,  and  broader,  and 
clearer;  and  I  have  it  all  in  my  head,  even  when  the  piece  is  a 
long  one;  and  I  see  it  like  a  beautiful  picture — not  hearing 
the  different  parts  in  succession  as  they  must  be  played,  but  the 
whole  at  once.  That  is  the  delight !  The  composing  and  the 
making  is  like  a  beautiful  and  vivid  dream  ;  but  this  hearing  of 
it  is  the  best  of  all." 

What  is  this  but  clear-seeing,  backward  and  forward,  the 
past  and  the  future  ?    The  one  faculty  is  not  a  whit  more  sur- 

10 


218 


THE  NIGHT -  SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


prising  and  incomprehensible  than  the  other,  to  those  who  pos- 
sess neither;  only  we  see  the  material  product  of  one,  and 
therefore  believe  in  it.  But.  as  Passavent  justly  observes,  these 
coruscations  belong  not  to  genius  exclusively  —  they  are  latent 
in  all  men.  In  the  highly-gifted  this  divine  spark  becomes  a 
flame  to  light  the  world  withal ;  but  even  in  the  coarsest  and 
least-developed  organizations,  it  may  and  does  momentarily 
break  forth.  The  germ  of  the  highest  spiritual  life  is  in  the 
rudest,  according  to  its  degree,  as  well  as  in  the  highest  form 
of  man  we  have  yet  seen; — he  is  but  a  more  imperfect  type  of 
the  race,  in  whom  this  spiritual  germ  has  not  unfolded  itself. 

Then,  with  respect  to  our  second  source  of  information,  1  am 
quite  aware  that  it  is  equally  difficult  to  establish  its  validity ; 
but  there  are  a  few  arguments  in  our  favor  here,  too.  In  the 
first  place,  as  Dr.  Johnson  says,  though  all  reason  is  against  us, 
all  tradition  is  for  us ;  and  this  conformity  of  tradition  is  surely 
of  some  weight,  since  I  think  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  any 
parallel  instance  of  a  universal  tradition  that  was  entirely  with- 
out a  foundation  in  truth ;  for  with  respect  to  witchcraft,  the 
belief  in  which  is  equally  universal,  we  now  know  that  the 
phenomena  were  generally  facts,  although  the  interpretations 
put  upon  them  were  fables.  It  may  certainly  be  objected  that 
this  universal  belief  in  ghosts  only  arises  from  the  universal 
prevalence  of  spectral  illusions ;  but  if  so,  as  I  have  before  ob- 
served, these  spectral  illusions  become  a  subject  of  very  curious 
inquiry ;  for,  in  the  first  place,  they  frequently  occur  under  cir- 
cumstances the  least  likely  to  induce  them,  and  to  people  whom 
we  should  least  expect  to  find  the  victims  of  them ;  and,  in  the 
second,  there  is  a  most  remarkable  conformity  here,  too,  not 
only  between  the  individual  cases  occurring  among  all  classes 
of  persons,  who  had  never  exhibited  the  slightest  tendency  to 
nervous  derangement  or  somnambulism,  but  also  between  these 
and  the  revelations  of  the  somnambules.  In  short,  it  seems  to 
me  that  life  is  reduced  to  a  mere  phantasmagoria,  if  spectral 
illusions  are  so  prevalent,  so  complicated  in  their  nature,  and 
so  delusive  as  they  must  be  if  all  the  instances  of  ghost-seeing 
that  come  before  us  are  to  be  referred  to  that  theory.  How 


THE  FUTURE 


THAT 


AWAITS  US. 


219 


numerous  these  are,  I  confess  myself  not  to  have  had  the  least 
idea,  till  my  attention  was  directed  to  the  inquiry  ;  and  that 
these  instances  have  been  equally  frequent  in  all  periods  and 
places  we  can  not  doubt,  from  the  variety  of  persons  that  have 
given  in  their  adhesion,  or  at  least  that  have  admitted,  as  Addi- 
son did,  that  he  could  not  refuse  the  universal  testimony  in 
favor  of  the  reappearance  of  the  dead,  strengthened  by  that  of 
many  credible  persons  with  whom  he  was  acquainted.  Indeed, 
the  testimony  in  favor  of  the  facts  has  been  at  all  periods  too 
strong  to  be  wholly  rejected ;  so  that  even  the  materialists,  like 
Lucretius  and  the  elder  Pliny,  find  themselves  obliged  to  ac- 
knowledge them ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  extravagant 
admissions  that  are  demanded  of  us  by  those  who  endeavor  to 
explain  them  away,  prove  that  their  disbelief  rests  on  no  more 
solid  foundation  than  their  own  prejudices.  I  acknowledge  all 
the  difficulty  of  establishing  the  facts  —  such  difficulties  as  in- 
deed encompass  few  other  branches  of  inquiry ;  but  I  maintain 
that  the  position  of  the  opponents  is  still  worse,  although,  by 
their  high  tone  and  contemptuous  laugh,  they  assume  to  have 
taken  up  one  that,  being  fortified  by  reason,  is  quite  impreg- 
nable, forgetting  that  the  wisdom  of  man  is  pre-eminently 
"  foolishness  before  God,"  when  it  wanders  into  this  region  of 
unknown  things;  —  forgetting,  also,  that  they  are*  just  serving 
this  branch  of  inquiry,  as  their  predecessors,  whom  they  laughed 
at,  did  physiology  ;  concocting  their  systems  out  of  their  own 
brains,  instead  of  the  responses  of  nature  —  and  with  still  more 
rashness  and  presumption,  this  department  of  her  kingdom  be- 
ing more  inaccessible,  more  incapable  of  demonstration,  and 
more  entirely  beyond  our  control ;  for  these  spirits  will  not 
"come  when  we  do  call  them;" — and  I  confess  it  often  sur- 
prises me  to  hear  the  very  shallow  nonsense  that  very  clever 
men  talk  upon  the  subject,  and  the  inefficient  arguments  they 
use  to  disprove  what  they  know  nothing  about.  I  am  quite  con- 
scious that  the  facts  I  shall  adduce  are  open  to  controversy  :  I 
can  bring  forward  no  evidence  that  wrill  satisfy  a  scientific  mind  ; 
but  neither  are  my  opponents  a  whit  better  fortified.  All  I  do 
hope  to  establish  is,  not  a  proof,  but  a  presumption ;  and  the 


220  THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 

conviction  I  desire  to  awaken  in  people's  minds  is,  not  that 
these  things  are  so,  but  that  they  may  he  so,  and  that  it  is  well 
worth  our  while  to  inquire  whether  they  are  or  not. 

It  will  be  seen  that  these  views  of  a  future  state  are  ex- 
tremely similar  to  those  of  Isaac  Taylor,  as  suggested  in  his 
physical  theory  of  another  life  —  at  least,  as  far  as  he  has  en- 
tered upon  the  subject;  —  and  it  is  natural  that  they  should  be 
so,  because  he  seems  also  to  have  been  a  convert  to  the  opinion 
that  "  the  dead  do  sometimes  break  through  the  boundaries 
that  hem  in  the  ethereal  crowds ;  and  if  so,  as  if  by  trespass, 
may  in  single  instances  infringe  upon  the  ground  of  common 
corporeal  life." 

Let  us  now  fancy  this  dispossessed  soul  entering  on  its  new 
career,  amazed,  and  no  more  able  than  when  it  was  in  the  body  to 
accommodate  itself  at  once  to  conditions  of  existence  for  which 
it  was  unprepared.  If  its  aspirations  had  previously  been 
heavenward,  these  conditions  would  not  be  altogether  new,  and 
it  would  speedily  find  itself  at  home  in  a  sphere  in  which  it  had 
dwelt  before ;  for,  as  I  have  formerly  said,  a  spirit  must  be 
where  its  thoughts  and  affections  are,  and  the  soul,  whose 
thoughts  and  affections  had  been  directed  to  heaven,  would 
only  awaken  after  death  into  a  more  perfect  and  unclouded 
heaven.  But  imagine  the  contrary  of  all  this.  Conceive  what 
this  awakening  must  be  to  an  earth-bound  spirit  —  to  one  alto- 
gether unprepared  for  its  new  home  —  carrying  no  light  within 
it  —  floating  in  the  dim  obscure  —  clinging  to  the  earth,  where 
all  its  affections  were  garnered  up  :  for  where  its  treasure  is, 
there  shall  it  be  also.  It  will  find  its  condition  evil,  more  or 
less,  according  to  the  degree  of  its  moral  light  or  darkness,  and 
in  proportion  to  the  amount  of  the  darkness  will  be  its  inca- 
pacity to  seek  for  light.  Now,  there  seems  nothing  offensive 
to  our  notions  of  the  Divine^oodness  in  this  conception  of  what 
awaits  us  when  the  body  dies.  It  appears  to  me,  on  the  con- 
trary, to  offer  a  more  comprehensible  and  coherent  view  than 
any  other  that  has  been  presented  to  me ;  yet  the  state  I  have 
depicted  is  very  much  the  hades  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans. 
It  is  the  middle  state,  on  which  all  souls  enter  —  a  state 


THE  FUTURE  THAT  AWAITS  US. 


221 


in  which  there  are  many  mansions ;  that  is,  there  are  innumer- 
ble  states  —  probably  not  permanent,  but  ever  progressive  or 
retrograde ;  for  we  can  not  conceive  of  any  moral  state  being 
permanent,  since  we  know  perfectly  well  that  ours  is  never  so  ; 
it  is  always  advancing  or  retroceding.  When  we  are  not  im- 
proving, we  are  deteriorating ;  and  so  it  must  necessarily  be 
with  us  hereafter. 

Now,  if  we  admit  the  probability  of  this  middle  state,  we 
have  removed  one  of  the  great  objections  which  are  made  to 
the  belief  in  the  reappearance  of  the  dead :  namely,  that  the 
blest  are  too  happy  to  return  to  the  earth,  and  that  the  wicked 
have  it  not  in  their  power  to  do  so.  This  difficulty  arises, 
however,  very  much  from  the  material  ideas  entertained  of 
heaven  and  hell — the  notion  that  they  are  places  instead  of 
states.  I  am  told  that  the  Greek  word  hades  is  derived  from 
aides,  invisible;  and  that  the  Hebrew  word  schebl,  which  has 
the  same  signification,  also  implies  a  state,  not  a  place,  since  it 
may  be  interpreted  into  desiring,  longing,  asking,  praying. 
These  words  in  the  Septuagint  are  translated  grave,  death,  and 
hell;  but  previously  to  the  Reformation  they  seem  to  have 
borne  their  original  meaning — that  is,  the  state  into  which  the 
soul  entered  at  the  death  of  the  body.  It  was  probably  to  get 
rid  of  the  purgatory  of  the  Roman  Church,  which  had  doubt- 
less become  the  source  of  many  absurd  notions  and  corrupt 
practices,  that  the  doctrine  of  a  middle  state  or  hades  was  set 
aside :  besides  which,  the  honest  desire  for  reformation,  in  all 
reforming  churches,  being  alloyed  by  the  odium  theologicum, 
the  purifying  besom  is  apt  to  take  too  discursive  a  sweep,  exerci- 
sing less  modesty  and  discrimination  than  might  be  desirable,  and 
thus  not  uncommonly  wiping  away  truth  and  falsehood  together. 

Dismissing  the  idea,  therefore,  that  heaven  and  hell  are 
places  in  which  the  soul  is  imprisoned,  whether  in  bliss  or  wo, 
and  supposing  that,  by  a  magnetic  relation,  it  may  remain  con- 
nected with  the  sphere  to  which  it  previously  belonged,  we 
may  easily  conceive  that,  if  it  have  the  memory  of  the  past,  the 
more  entirely  sensuous  its  life  in  the  body  may  have  been,  the 
closer  it  will  cling  to  the  scene  of  its  former  joys ;  or  even  if  its 


222 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


sojourn  on  earth  were  not  a  period  of  joy,  but  the  contrary, 
still,  if  it  have  no  heavenward  aspirations,  it  will  find  itself,  if 
not  in  actual  wo,  yet  aimless,  objectless,  and  out  of  a  congenial 
element.  It  has  no  longer  the  organs  whereby  it  perceived, 
communicated  with,  and  enjoyed,  the  material  world  and  its 
pleasures.  The  joys  of  heaven  are  not  its  joys ;  we  might  as 
well  expect  a  hardened  prisoner  in  Newgate,  associating  with 
others  as  hardened  as  himself,  to  melt  into  ecstatic  delight  at  the 
idea  of  that  which  he  can  not  apprehend  !  How  helpless  and 
inefficient  such  a  condition  seems  !  and  how  natural  it  is  to  us 
to  imagine  that,  under  such  circumstances,  there  might  be 
awakened  a  considerable  desire  to  manifest  itself  to  those  yet 
living  in  the  flesh,  if  such  a  manifestation  be  possible  !  And 
what  right  have  we,  in  direct  contradiction  to  all  tradition,  to 
assert  that  it  is  not  1  We  may  raise  up  a  variety  of  objections 
from  physical  science,  but  we  can  not  be  sure  that  these  are 
applicable  to  the  case  ;  and  of  the  laws  of  spirit  we  know  very 
little,  since  we  are  only  acquainted  with  it  as  circumscribed, 
confined,  and  impeded,  in  its  operations,  by  the  body  ;  and 
whenever  such  abnormal  states  occur  as  enable  it  to  act  with 
any  degree  of  independence,  man,  under  the  dominion  of  his 
all-sufficient  reason,  denies  and  disowns  the  facts. 

That  the  manifestation  of  a  spirit  to  the  living,  whether  seen 
or  heard,  is  an  exception,  and  not  the  rule,  is  evident ;  for,  sup- 
posing the  desire  to  exist  at  all,  it  must  exist  in  millions  and 
millions  of  instances  which  never  take  effect.  The  circum- 
stances must  therefore  no  doubt  be  very  peculiar,  as  regards 
both  parties  in  which  such  a  manifestation  is  possible.  What 
these  are,  we  have  very  little  means  of  knowing ;  but,  as  far  as 
we  do  know,  we  are  led  to  conclude  that  a  certain  magnetic 
rapport  or  polarity  constitutes  this  condition,  while,  at  the  same 
time,  as  regards  the  seer,  there  must  be  what  the  prophet  called 
the  "  opening  of  the  eye,"  which  may  perhaps  signify  the  seeing 
of  the  spirit  without  the  aid  of  the  bodily  organ  —  a  condition 
which  may  temporarily  occur  to  any  one  under  we  know  not 
what  influence,  but  which  seems,  to  a  certain  degree,  hereditary 
in  some  families. 


THE  FUTURE  THAT  AWAITS  US. 


223 


The  following  passage  is  quoted  from  Sir  William  Hamilton's 
edition  of  Dr.  Reid's  works,  published  in  184G  : — 

"  No  man  can  show  it  to  be  impossible  to  the  Supreme  Being 
to  have  given  us  the  power  of  perceiving  external  objects,  with- 
out any  such  organs"  —  that  is,* our  organs  of  sense.  "We 
have  reason  to  believe  that  when  we  put  off  these  bodies,  and 
all  the  organs  belonging  to  them,  our  perceptive  powers  shall 
rather  be  improved  than  destroyed  or  impaired.  We  have 
reason  to  believe  that  the  Supreme  Being  perceives  everything 
in  a  much  more  perfect  manner  than  we  do,  without  bodily 
organs.  We  have  reason  to  believe  that  there  are  other  cre- 
ated beings  endowed  with  powers  of  perception  more  perfect 
and  more  extensive  than  ours,  without  any  such  organs  as  we 
find  necessary and  Sir  William  Hamilton  adds  the  following 
note  : — 

"  However  astonishing,  it  is  now  proved  beyond  all  rational 
doubt  that  in  certain  abnormal  states  of  the  nervous  organism, 
perceptions  are  possible  through  other  than  the  ordinary  chan- 
nels of  the  sense." 

Of  the  existence  of  this  faculty  in  nature,  any  one,  who 
chooses,  may  satisfy  himself  by  a  very  moderate  degree  of 
trouble,  provided  he  undertake  the  investigation  honestly ;  and 
this  being  granted,  another  objection,  if  not  altogether  removed, 
is  considerably  weakened.  I  allude  to  the  fact  that,  in  numerous 
reported  cases  of  ghost-seeing,  the  forms  were  visible  to  only 
one  person,  even  though  others  were  present,  which,  of  course, 
rendered  them  undistinguishable  from  cases  of  spectral  illusion, 
and  indeed  unless  some  additional  evidence  be  afforded,  they 
must  remain  so  still,  only  we  have  gained  thus  much,  that  this 
objection  is  no  longer  unanswerable  ;  for  whether  the  phenom- 
enon is  to  be  referred  to  a  mutual  rapport,  or  to  the  opening 
of  the  spiritual  eye,  we  comprehend  how  one  may  see  what 
others  do  not.  But  really,  if  the  seeing  depended  upon  ordi- 
nary vision,  I  can  not  perceive  that  the  difficulty  is  insurmount- 
able ;  for  we  perfectly  well  know  that  some  people  are  endowed 
with  an  acuteness  of  sense,  or  power  of  perception,  which  is 
utterly  incomprehensible  to  others  ;  for,  without  entering  into 


224 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


the  disputed  region  of  clear-seeing,  everybody  must  have  met 
with  instances  of  those  strange  antipathies  to  certain  objects, 
accompanied  by  an  extraordinary  capacity  for  perceiving  their 
presence,  which  remain  utterly  unexplained.  Not  to  speak  of 
cats  and  hares,  where  some  electrical  effects  might  be  conceived, 
I  lately  heard  of  a  gentleman  who  fainted  if  he  were  introduced 
into  a  room  where  there  was  a  raspberry  tart ;  and  that  there 
have  been  persons  endowed  with  a  faculty  for  discovering  the 
proximity  of  water  and  metals,  even  without  the  aid  of  the  divi- 
ning rod  —  which  latter  marvel  seems  to  be  now  clearly  estab- 
lished as  an  electrical  phenomenon  —  will  scarcely  admit  of 
further  doubt. 

A  very  eminent  person,  with  whom  I  am  acquainted,  posses- 
sing extremely  acute  olfactory  powers,  is  the  subject  of  one 
single  exception.  He  is  insensible  to  the  odor  of  a  beanfield, 
however  potent :  but  it  wouM  surely  be  very  absurd  in  him 
to  deny  that  the  beanfield  emits  an  odor,  and  the  evidence  of 
the  majority  against  him  is  too  strong  to  admit  of  his  do- 
ing so. 

Now,  we  have  only  the  evidence  of  a  minority  with  regard  to 
the  existence  of  certain  faculties  not  generally  developed,  but 
surely  it  argues  great  presumption  to  dispute  their  possibility. 
We  might,  I  think,  with  more  appearance  of  reason,  insist  upon 
it  that  my  friend  must  be  mistaken,  and  that  he  does  smell  the 
beanfield,  for  we  have  the  majority  against  him  there  most  de- 
cidedly. The  difference  is,  that  nobody  cares  whether  the  odor 
of  the  beanfield  is  perceptible  or  not :  but  if  the  same  gentle- 
man asserted  that  he  had  seen  a  ghost,  beyond  all  doubt  his 
word  would  be  disputed. 

Though  we  do  not  know  what  the  conditions  are  that  de- 
velop the  faculty  of  what  St.  Paul  calls  the  discerning  of  spirits, 
there  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  approach  of  death  is  one.  1 
have  heard  of  too  many  instances  of  this  kind,  where  the  depart- 
ing person  has  been  in  the  entire  possession  of  his  or  her  facul- 
ties, to  doubt  that  in  our  last  moments  we  are  frequently  visited 
by  those  who  have  gone  before  us ;  and  it  being  admitted  by  all 
physiologists  that  preternatural  faculties  are  sometimes  exhib- 


THE  FUTURE  THAT  AWAITS  US. 


225 


ited  at  this  period,  we  can  have  no  right  to  say  that  "  the  dis- 
cerning of  spirits"  is  not  one  of  them. 

There  is  an  interesting  story  recorded  by  Beaumont,  in  his 
"  World  of  Spirits,"  and  quoted  by  Dr.  Hibbert  with  the  remark 
that  no  reasonable  doubt  can  be  placed  on  the  authenticity  of 
the  narrative,  as  it  was  drawn  up  by  the  bishop  of  Gloucester 
from  the  recital  of  the  young  lady's  father;  and  I  mention  it 
here,  not  for  any  singularity  attending  it,  but  first,  because  its 
authenticity  is  admitted,  and  next,  on  account  of  the  manner  in 
which  —  so  much  being  granted  —  the  fact  is  attempted  to  be 
explained  away  : — 

"  Sir  Charles  Lee,  by  his  first  lady,  had  only  one  daughter, 
of  which  she  died  in  childbirth  ;  and  when  she  was  dead,  her 
sister,  the  Lady  Everard,  desired  to  have  the  education  of  the 
child,  and  she  was  very  well  educated  till  she  was  marriageable, 
and  a  match  was  concluded  for  her  with  Sir  W.  Parkins,  but 
was  then  prevented  in  an  extraordinary  manner.  Upon  a 
Thursday  night,  she  thinking  she  saw  a  light  in  her  chamber 
after  she  was  in  bed,  knocked  for  her  maid,  who  presently 
came  to  her,  and  she  asked  why  she  left  a  candle  burning  in 
her  room.  The  maid  answered  that  she  had  left  none,  and  that 
there  was  none  but  what  she  had  brought  with  her  at  that  time. 
*  Then,'  she  said,  '  it  must  be  the  fire but  that,  her  maid  told 
her,  was  quite  out,  adding  she  believed  it  was  only  a  dream, 
whereupon  Miss  Lee  answered  that  it  might  be  so,  and  com- 
posed herself  again  to  sleep.  But,  about  two  of  the  clock,  she 
was  awakened  again,  and  saw  the  apparition  of  a  little  woman 
between  her  curtains  and  her  pillow,  who  told  her  she  was  her 
mother,  that  she  was  happy,  and  that,  by  twelve  of  the  clock 
that  day,  she  should  be  with  her.  Whereupon,  she  knocked 
again  for  her  maid,  called  for  her  clothes,  and  when  she  was 
dressed,  went  into  her  closet,  and  came  not  out  again  till  nine, 
and  then  brought  out  with  her  a  letter,  sealed,  to  her  father, 
carried  it  to  her  aunt,  the  Lady  Everard,  told  her  what  had  hap- 
pened, and  desired  that  as  soon  as  she  was  dead  it  might  be 
sent  to  him.  The  lady  thought  she  was  suddenly  fallen  mad, 
and  therefore  sent  presently  away  to  Chelmsford  for  a  physi- 

10* 


220 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


cian  and  surgeon,  who  both  came  immediately,  but  the  physi- 
cian could  discern  no  indication  of  what  the  lady  imagined,  or 
of  any  indisposition  of  her  body ;  notwithstanding,  the  lady 
would  needs  have  her  let  blood,  which  was  done  accordingly : 
and  when  the  young  woman  had  patiently  let  them  do  what 
they  would  with  her,  she  desired  that  the  chaplain  might  be 
called  to  read  prayers ;  and  when  the  prayers  were  ended,  she 
took  her  guitar  and  psalm-book,  and  sat  down  upon  a  chair 
without  arms,  and  played  and  sung  so  melodiously  and  admira- 
bly, that  her  music-master,  who  was  then  there,  admired  at  it. 
And  near  the  stroke  of  twelve,  she  rose  and  sat  herself  down 
in  a  great  chair  with  arms,  and  presently  fetching  a  strong 
breathing  or  two,  she  immediately  expired,  and  was  so  sud- 
denly cold  as  was  much  wondered  at  by  the  physician  and  sur- 
geon. She  died  at  Waltham,  in  Essex,  three  miles  from 
Chelmsford,  and  the  letter  was  sent  to  Sir  Charles,  at  his  house 
in  Warwickshire ;  but  he  was  so  afflicted  at  the  death  of  his 
daughter,  that  he  came  not  till  she  was  buried  :  but  when  he 
came,  he  caused  her  to  be  taken  up,  and  to  be  buried  with  her 
mother,  at  Edmonton,  as  she  desired  in  her  letter.,' 

This  circumstance  occurred  in  the  year  1662,  and  is,  as  Dr. 
Hibbert  observes,  "  one  of  the  most  interesting  ghost-stories  on 
record  :"  yet  he  insists  on  placing  it  under  the  category  of  spec- 
tral illusions,  upon  the  plea  that,  let  the  physician  (whose  skill 
he  arraigns)  say  what  he  would,  her  death  within  so  short  a 
period  proves  that  she  must  have  been  indisposed  at  the  time 
she  saw  the  vision,  and  that  probably  "  the  languishing  female 
herself  might  have  unintentionally  contributed  to  the  more  strict 
verification  of  the  ghost's  prediction,"  concluding  with  these 
words :  "  All  that  can  be  said  of  it  is,  that  the  coincidence  was 
a  fortunate  one  ;  for,  without  it,  the  story  would  probably  nevei 
have  met  with  a  recorder,"  &c,  &c. 

Now,  I  ask  if  this  is  a  fair  way  of  treating  any  fact,  transmit- 
ted to  us  on  authority  which  the  objector  himself  admits  to  be 
perfectly  satisfactory  —  more  especially  as  the  assistants  on  the 
occasion  appear  to  have  been  quite  as  unwilling  to  believe  in 
the  supernatural  interpretation  of  it  as  Dr.  Hibbert  could  have 


THE  FUTURE  THAT  AWAITS  US. 


227 


been  himself,  had  he  been  present;  for  what  more  could  he 
have  done  than  conclude  the  young  lady  to  be  mad,  and  bled 
her?  —  a  line  of  practice  which  is  precisely  what  would  be  fol- 
lowed at  the  present  time,  and  which  proves  that  they  were 
very  well  aware  of  the  sensuous  illusions  produced  by  a  disor- 
dered state  of  the  nervous  system  ;  and  with  respect  to  his 
conclusion  that  the  "  languishing  female"  contributed  to  the 
verification  of  the  prediction,  we  are  entitled  to  ask,  where  is 
the  proof  that  she  was  languishing  1  A  very  clever  watchma- 
ker once  told  me  that  a  watch  may  go  perfectly  well  for  years, 
and  at  length  slop  suddenly,  in  consequence  of  an  organic  de- 
fect in  its  construction,  which  only  becomes  perceptible,  even 
to  the  eye  of  a  watchmaker,  when  this  effect  takes  place ;  and 
we  do  know  that  many  persons  have  suddenly  fallen  dead  im- 
mediately after  declaring  themselves  in  the  best  possible  health  : 
and  we  have  therefore  no  right  to  dispute  what  the  narrator 
implies,  namely,  that  there  were  no  sensible  indications  of  the 
impending  catastrophe. 

There  was  either  some  organic  defect  or  derangement  in  this 
lady's  physical  economy,  which  rendered  her  death  inevitable 
at  the  hour  of  noon,  on  that  particular  Thursday,  or  there  was 
not.  If  there  was,  and  her  certain  death  was  impending  at  that 
hour,  how  came  she  acquainted  with  the  fact  ?  Surely  it  is  a 
monstrous  assumption  to  say  that  it  was  "  a  fortunate  coinci- 
dence," when  no  reason  whatever  is  given  us  for  concluding 
that  she  felt  otherwise  than  perfectly  well  !  If,  on  the  contrary, 
we  are  to  take  refuge  in  the  supposition  that  there  was  no  death 
impending,  and  that  she  only  died  of  the  fright,  how  came  she 
— feeling  perfectly  well,  and,  in  this  case,  we  have  a  right  to 
conclude  being  ^perfectly  well  —  to  be  the  subject  of  such  an 
extraordinary  spectral  illusion  ?  And  if  such  spectral  illusions 
can  occur  to  people  in  a  good  normal  state  of  health,  does  it 
not  become  very  desirable  to  give  us  some  clearer  theory  of 
them  than  we  have  at  present  ? 

But  there  is  a  third  presumption  to  which  the  skeptical  may 
have  recourse,  in  order  to  get  rid  of  this  well-established,  and 
therefore  very  troublesome  fact,  namely,  that  Miss  Lee  was  ill, 


228  THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 

although  unconscious  of  it  herself,  and  indicating  no  symptoms 
that  could  guide  her  physician  to  an  enlightened  diagnosis ;  and 
that  the  proof  of  this  is  to  be  found  in  the  occurrence  of  the 
spectral  illusion  ;  and  that  this  spectral  illusion  so  impressed  her 
that  it  occasioned  the  precise  fulfilment  of  the  imaginary  pi  e- 
diction —  an  hypothesis  which  appears  to  me  to  be  pressing  very 
hard  on  the  spectral  illusion  ;  for  it  is  first  called  upon  to 
establish  the  fact  of  an  existing  indisposition  of  no  slight  char- 
acter, of  which  neither  patient  nor  physician  was  aware,  and 
it  is  next  required  to  kill  the  lady  with  uneiTing  certainty,  at 
the  hour  appointed,  she  being,  according  to  the  only  authority 
we  have  for  the  story,  in  a  perfectly  calm  and  composed  state 
of  mind  !  for  there  is  nothing  to  be  discerned  in  the  description 
of  her  demeanor  but  an  entire  and  willing  submission  to  the 
announced  decree,  accompanied  by  that  pleasing  exaltation, 
which  appears  to  me  perfect^  natural  under  the  circumstan- 
ces ;  and  I  do  not  think  that  anything  we  know  of  human 
vitality  can  justify  us  in  believing  that  life  can  be  so  easily  ex- 
tinguished. But  to  such  straits  people  are  reduced,  who  write 
with  a  predetermination  to  place  their  facts  on  a  Procrustean 
bed  till  they  have  fitted  them  into  their  own  cherished  theory. 

In  the  above-recorded  case  of  Miss  Lee,  the  motive  for  the 
visit  is  a  sufficient  one ;  but  one  of  the  commonest  objections  to 
such  narrations,  is  the  insignificance  of  the  motive  when  any 
communication  is  made,  or  there  being  apparently  no  motive 
at  all,  when  none  is  made.  Where  any  previous  attachment 
has  subsisted,  we  need  seek  no  further  for  an  impelling  cause ; 
but  in  other  cases  this  impelling  cause  must  probably  be  sought 
in  the  earthly  rapport  still  subsisting  and  the  urgent  desire 
of  the  spirit  to  manifest  itself  and  establish  a  communication 
where  its  thoughts  and  affections  still  reside  ;  and  we  must  con- 
sider that,  provided  there  be  no  law  of  God  prohibiting  its 
revisiting  the  earth,  which  law  would  of  course  supersede  all 
other  laws,  then,  as  I  have  before  observed,  where  its  thoughts 
and  affections  are  it  must  be  also.  What  is  it  but  our  heavy 
material  bodies  that  prevents  us  from  being  where  our  thoughts 
are  ?    But  the  being  near  us,  and  the  manifesting  itself  to  us, 


THE  FUTURE  THAT  AWAITS  US.  229 


are  two  very  different  things,  the  latter  evidently  depending  on 
conditions  we  do  not  yet  understand. 

As  I  am  not  writing  a  book  on  vital  magnetism,  and  there  are 
so  many  already  accessible  to  everybody  who  chooses  to  be 
informed  on  it,  I  shall  not  here  enter  into  the  subject  of  mag- 
netic rapport,  it  being,  I  believe,  now  generally  admitted,  ex- 
cept by  the  most  obstinate  skeptics,  that  such  a  relation  can  be 
established  between  two  human  beings.  In  what  this  relation 
consists,  is  a  more  difficult  question,  but  the  most  rational  view 
appears  to  be  that  of  a  magnetic  polarity,  which  is  attempted  to 
be  explained  by  two  theories — the  dynamical  and  the  ethereal, 
the  one  viewing  the  phenomena  as  simply  the  result  of  the 
transmission  of  forces,  the  other  hypothetizing  an  ether  which 
pervades  all  space  and  penetrates  all  substance,  maintaining  the 
connection  between  body  and  soul,  and  between  matter  and 
spirit.  To  most  minds  this  latter  hypothesis  will  be  the  most 
comprehensible ;  on  which  account,  since  the  result  would  be 
the  same  in  either  case,  we  may  adopt  for  the  moment ;  and 
there  will  then  be  less  difficulty  in  conceiving  that  the  influence 
or  ether  of  every  being  or  thing,  animate  or  inanimate,  must 
extend  beyond  the  periphery  of  its  own  terminations  :  and  that 
this  must  be  eminently  the  case  where  there  is  animal  life,  the 
nerves  forming  the  readiest  conductors  for  this  supposed  im- 
ponderable. The  proofs  of  the  existence  of  this  ether  are  said 
to  be  manifold,  and  more  especially  to  be  found  in  the  circum- 
stances that  every  created  thing  sheds  an  atmosphere  around  it, 
after  its  kind ;  this  atmosphere  becoming,  under  certain  con- 
ditions, perceptible  or  even  visible,  as  in  the  instances  of 
electric  fish,  &c,  the  fascinations  of  serpents,  the  influence  of 
human  beings  upon  plants,  and  vice  versa  ;  and  finally,  the  phe- 
nomena of  animal  magnetism,  and  the  undoubted  fact,  to  which 
1  myself  can  bear  witness,  that  the  most  ignorant  girls,  when  in 
a  state  of  somnambulism,  have  been  known  to  declare  that  they 
saw  their  magnetiser  surrounded  by  a  halo  of  light;  and  it 
is  doubtless  this  halo  of  light,  that,  from  their  being  strongly 
magnetic  men,  has  frequently  been  observed  to  surround  the 
heads  of  saints  and  eminently  holy  persons :  the  temperament 


230 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


that  produced  the  internal  fervor,  causing  the  visible  manifesta- 
tion of  it.  By  means  of  this  ether,  or  force,  a  never-ceasing 
motion  and  an  intercommunication  are  sustained  between  all  cre- 
ated things,  and  between  created  things  and  their  Creator,  who 
sustains  them  and  creates  them  ever  anew,  by  the  constant  ex- 
ertion of  his  Divine  will,  of  which  this  is  the  messenger  and  the 
agent  as  it  is  between  our  will  and  our  own  bodies ;  and  with- 
out this  sustaining  will,  so  exerted,  the  whole  would  fall  away, 
dissolve,  and  die  ;  for  it  is  the  life  of  the  universe.  That  all  in- 
animate objects  emit  an  influence,  greater  or  less,  extending 
beyond  their  own  peripheries,  is  established  by  their  effects  on 
various  susceptible  individuals,  as  well  as  on  somnambules ; 
and  thus  there  exist  a  universal  polarity  and  rapport,  which  are 
however  stronger  between  certain  organisms ;  and  every  being 
stands  in  a  varying  relation  of  positive  and  negative  to  every 
other. 

"With  regard  to  these  theories,  however,  where  there  is  so 
much  obscurity  even  in  the  language,  I  do  not  wish  to  insist ; 
more  especially  as  I  am  fully  aware  that  this  subject  may  be 
discussed  in  a  manner  much  more  congruous  with  the  dynami- 
cal spirit  of  the  philosophy  of  this  century :  but,  in  the  mean- 
while, as  either  of  the  causes  alluded  to  is  capable  of  producing 
the  effects,  we  adopt  the  hypothesis  of  an  all-pervading  ether 
as  the  one  most  easily  conceived. 

Admitting  this,  then,  to  be  the  case,  we  begin  to  have  some 
notion  of  the  modus  operandi  by  which  a  spirit  may  manifest 
itself  to  us,  whether  to  our  internal  universal  sense,  or  even  to 
our  sensuous  organs ;  and  we  also  find  one  stumbling-block 
removed  out  of  our  way,  namely,  that  it  shall  be  visible  or  even 
audible  to  one  person  and  not  to  another,  or  at  one  time  and 
not  at  another  ;  for  by  means  of  this  ether,  or  force,  we  are  in 
communication  with  all  spirit,  as  well  as  with  all  matter;  and 
since  it  is  the  vehicle  of  will,  a  strong  exertion  of  will  may  rein- 
force its  influence  to  a  degree  far  beyond  our  ordinary  concep- 
tions :  but  man  is  not  acquainted  with  his  own  power,  and  has, 
consequently,  no  faith  in  his  own  will :  nor  is  it  probably  the 
design  of  Providence,  in  ordinary  cases,  that  he  should.  He 


THE  FUTURE  THAT  AWAITS  US. 


231 


can  not  therefore  exert  it ;  if  be  could,  he  "  might  remove 
mountains."  Even  as  it  is,  we  know  something  of  the  power 
of  will  in  its  effect  on  other  organisms,  as  exhibited  by  certain 
strong-willed  individuals ;  also  in  popular  movements ;  and 
more  manifestly  in  the  influence  and  far-working  of  the  mag- 
netizer  on  his  patient.  The  power  of  will,  like  the  seeing  of 
the  spirit,  is  latent  in  our  nature,  to  be  developed  in  God's  own 
time ;  but  meanwhile,  slight  examples  are  found,  shooting  up 
here  and  there,  to  keep  alive  in  man  the  consciousness  that  he 
is  a  spirit,  and  give  evidence  of  his  Divine  origin. 

What  especial  laws  may  appertain  to  this  supersensuous  do- 
main of  nature,  of  course  we  can  not  know,  and  it  is  therefore 
impossible  for  us  to  pronounce  how  far  a  spirit  is  free,  or  not 
free,  at  all  times  to  manifest  itself;  and  we  can,  therefore,  at 
present,  advance  no  reason  for  these  manifestations  not  being 
the  rule  instead  of  the  exception.  The  law  which  restrains 
more  frequent  intercourse  may,  for  anything  we  know  to  the 
contrary,  have  its  relaxations  and  its  limitations,  founded  in 
nature  ;  and  a  rapport  with,  or  the  power  of  acting  on,  particu- 
lar individuals,  may  arise  from  causes  of  which  we  are  equally 
ignorant.  Undoubtedly,  the  receptivity  of  the  corporeal  being 
is  one  of  the  necessary  conditions,  while,  on  the  part  of  the  in- 
corporeal, the  will  is  at  once  the  cause  and  the  agent  that  pro- 
duces the  effect ;  while  attachment,  whether  to  individuals  or 
to  the  lost  joys  of  this  world,  is  the  motive.  The  happy  spirits 
in  whom  this  latter  impulse  is  weak,  and  who  would  float  away 
into  the  glorious  light  of  the  pure  moral  law,  would  have  little 
temptation  to  return,  and  at  least  would  only  be  brought  back 
by  their  holy  affections,  or  desire  to  serve  mankind.  The  less 
happy,  clinging  to  their  dear  corporeal  life,  would  hover  nearer 
to  the  earth;  and  I  do  question  much  whether  the  often-ridi- 
culed idea  of  the  mystics,  that  there  is  a  moral  weight,  as  well 
as  a  moral  darkness,  be  not  founded  in  truth.  We  know  very 
well  that  even  these  substantial  bodies  of  ours  are,  to  our  own 
sensations  (and,  very  possibly,  if  the  thing  could  be  tested,  would 
prove  to  be  in  fact),  lighter  or  heavier,  according  to  the  light- 
ness or  heaviness  of  the  spirit — terms  used  figuratively,  but 


232 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


perhaps  capable  of  a  literal  interpretation  ;  and  thus  the  com- 
mon idea  of  up  and  down,  as  applied  to  heaven  or  hell,  is 
founded  in  truth,  though  not  mathematically  correct,  we  famil- 
iarly using  the  words  up  and  down  to  express  farther  or 
nearer,  as  regards  the  planet  on  which  we  live. 

Experience  seems  to  justify  this  view  of  the  case ;  for, 
supposing  the  phenomena  I  am  treating  of  to  be  facts,  and 
not  spectral  illusions,  all  tradition  shows  that  the  spirits  most 
frequently  manifested  to  man  have  been  evidently  not  in  a 
state  of  bliss ;  while,  when  bright  ones  appeared  it  has  been 
to  serve  him ;  and  hence  the  old  persuasion,  that  they  were, 
chiefly  the  wicked  that  haunted  the  earth,  and  hence,  also,  the 
foundation  for  the  belief  that  not  only  the  murderer  but  the 
murdered  returned  to  vex  the  living,  and  the  just  view,  that  in 
taking  away  life  the  injury  is  not  confined  to  the  body,  but 
extends  to  the  surprised  and  angry  soul,  which  is — 

"  Cut  off,  even  in  the  blossom  of  its  sin, 
Unhouselled,  disappointed,  unaneled ; 
No  reckoning  made,  but  sent  to  its  account 
With  all  its  imperfections  on  its  head.'' 

It  seems  also  to  be  gathered  from  experience,  that  those 
whose  lives  have  been  rendered  wretched,  "  rest  not  in  their 
graves ;"  at  least,  several  accounts  I  have  met  with,  as  well  as 
tradition,  countenance  this  view  ;  and  this  may  originate  in  the 
fact  that  cruelty  and  ill-usage  frequently  produce  very  perni- 
cious effects  on  the  mind  of  the  sufferer,  in  many  instances 
inspiring,  not  resignation  or  a  pious  desire  for  death,  but  resent- 
ment, and  an  eager  longing  for  a  fair  share  of  earthly  enjoy- 
ment. Supposing,  also,  the  feelings  and  prejudices  of  the 
earthly  life  to  accompany  this  dispossessed  soul  —  for,  though 
the  liberation  from  the  body  inducts  it  into  certain  privileges 
inherent  in  spirit,  its  moral  qualities  remain  as  they  were  ("  M 
the  tree  falls,  so  it  shall  lie")  —  supposing,  therefore,  that  these 
feelings,  and  prejudices,  and  recollections,  of  its  past  life,  arc 
carried  with  it,  we  see  at  once  why  the  discontented  spirits  of 
the  heathen  world  could  not  rest  till  their  bodies  had  obtained 
sepulture,  why  the  buried  money  should  torment  the  soul  of 


♦ 


THE  FUTURE  THAT  AWAITS  US.  233 

the  miser,  and  why  the  religious  opinions,  whatever  they  may 
have  been,  believed  in  the  flesh,  seem  to  survive  with  the  spirit. 
There  are  two  remarkable  exceptions,  however,  and  these  are 
precisely  such  as  might  be  expected.  Those  who,  during  their 
corporeal  life,  have  not  believed  in  a  future  state,  return  to 
warn  their  friends  against  the  same  error.  "  There  is  another 
world !"  said  the  brother  of  the  young  lady  who  appeared  to 
her  in  the  cathedral  of  York,  on  the  day  he  was  drowned ;  and 
there  are  several  similar  instances  recorded.  The  belief  that 
this  life  "  is  the  be-all  and  the  end-all  here,"  is  a  mistake  that 
death  must  instantly  rectify.  The  other  exception  I  allude  to 
is,  that  that  toleration,  of  which,  unfortunately,  we  see  much  less 
than  is  desirable  in  this  world,  seems  happily  to  prevail  in  the 
next ;  for,  among  the  numerous  narrations  I  meet  with,  in  which 
the  dead  have  returned  to  ask  the  prayers  or  the  services  of  the 
living,  they  do  not  seem,  as  will  be  seen  by-and-by,  to  apply  by 
any  means  exclusively  to  members  of  their  own  church.  The 
attrait  which  seems  to  guide  their  selection  of  individuals  is 
evidently  not  of  a  polemical  nature.  The  pure  worship  of  God, 
and  the  inexorable  moral  law,  are  what  seem  to  prevail  in  the 
other  world,  and  not  the  dogmatic  theology  which  makes  so 
much  of  the  misery  of  this. 

There  is  a  fundamental  truth  in  all  religions :  the  real  end 
of  all  is  morality,  however  the  means  may  be  mistaken,  and 
however  corrupt,  selfish,  ambitious,  and  sectarian,  the  mass  of 
their  teachers  may  and  generally  do  become ;  while  the  effect 
of  prayer — in  whatever  form,  or  to  whatever  ideal  of  the  Deity 
it  may  be  offered,  provided  that  offering  be  honestly  and  ear- 
nestly made  —  is  precisely  the  same  to  the  supplicant  and  in  its 
results. 

I  have  reserved  the  following  story,  which  is  not  a  fiction, 
but  the  relation  of  an  undoubted  and  well-attested  fact,  till  the 
present  chapter,  as  being  particularly  applicable  to  this  branch 
of  my  subject : — 

Some  ninety  years  ago,  there  flourished  in  Glasgow  a  club 
of  young  men,  which,  from  the  extreme  profligacy  of  its  mem- 
bers, and  the  licentiousness  of  their  orgies,  was  commonly  called 


234 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


the  "  Hell-Club  !"  Besides  their  nightly  or  weekly  meetings, 
they  held  one  grand  annual  saturnalia,  in  which  each  tried  to 
excel  the  other  in  drunkenness  and  blasphemy  ;  and  on  these 
occasions  there  was  no  star  among  them  whose  lurid  light  was 

more  conspicuous  than  that  of  young  Mr.  Archibald  B  , 

who,  endowed  with  brilliant  talents  and  a  handsome  person, 
had  held  out  great  promise  in  his  boyhood,  and  raised  hopes, 
which  had  been  completely  frustrated  by  his  subsequent  reck- 
less dissipations. 

One  morning,  after  returning  from  this  annual  festival,  Mr. 

Archibald  B  having  retired  to  bed,  dreamed  the  following 

dream  : — 

He  fancied  that  he  himself  was  mounted  on  a  favorite  black 
horse,  that  he  always  rode,  and  that  he  was  proceeding  toward 
his  own  house  —  then  a  country-seat  embowered  by  trees,  and 
situated  upon  a  hill,  now  entirely  built  over,  and  forming  part 
of  the  city  —  when  a  stranger,  whom  the  darkness  of  night  pre- 
vented his  distinctly  discerning,  suddenly  seized  his  horse's  rein, 
saying,  "  You  must  go  with  me !" 

"  And  who  are  you  ?"  exclaimed  the  young  man,  with  a  vol- 
ley of  oaths,  while  he  struggled  to  free  himself. 

That  you  will  see  by-and-by  !"  returned  the  other,  in  a  tone 
that  excited  unaccountable  terror  in  the  youth,  who,  plunging 
his  spurs  into  his  horse,  attempted  to  fly.  But  in  vain  :  how- 
ever fast  the  animal  flew,  the  stranger  was  still  beside  him,  till 
at  length,  in  his  desperate  efforts  to  escape,  the  rider  was 
thrown ;  but  instead  of  being  dashed  to  the  earth,  as  he  ex- 
pected, he  found  himself  falling — falling  —  falling  still,  as  if 
sinking  into  the  bowels  of  the  earth. 

At  length,  a  period  being  put  to  this  mysterious  descent,  he 
found  breath  to  inquire  of  his  companion,  who  was  still  beside 
him,  whither  they  were  going  :  "  Where  am  1 1  where  are  you 
taking  me  V*  he  exclaimed. 

"  To  hell !"  replied  the  stranger,  and  immediately  intermina- 
ble echoes  repeated  the  fearful  sound,  "To  hell!  —  to  hell!  — 
to  hell!" 

At  length  a  light  appeared,  which  soon  increased  to  a  blaze ; 


THE  FUTURE  THAT  AWAITS  US.  235 

but,  instead  of  the  cries,  and  groans,  and  lamentings,  which  the 
terrified  traveller  expected,  nothing  met  his  ear  but  sounds  of 
music,  mirth,  and  jollity  ;  and  he  found  himself  at  the  entrance 
of  a  superb  building,  far  exceeding  any  he  had  seen  constructed 
by  human  hands.  Within,  too,  what  a  scene  !  No  amusement, 
employment,  or  pursuit  of  man  on  earth,  but  was  here  being 
carried  on  with  a  vehemence  that  excited  his  unutterable  amaze- 
ment. "  There  the  young  and  lovely  still  swam  through  the 
mazes  of  the  giddy  dance  !  There  the  panting  steed  still  bore 
his  brutal  rider  through  the  excitements  of  the  goaded  race  ! 
There,  over  the  midnight  bowl,  the  intemperate  still  drawled 
out  the  wanton  song  or  maudlin  blasphemy  !  The  gambler 
plied  for  ever  his  endless  game,  and  the  slaves  of  Mammon 
toiled  through  eternity  their  bitter  task  ;  while  all  the  magnifi- 
cence of  earth  paled  before  that  which  now  met  his  view !" 

He  soon  perceived  that  he  was  among  old  acquaintances, 
whom  he  knew  to  be  dead,  and  each  he  observed  was  pursuing 
the  object,  whatever  it  was,  that  had  formerly  engrossed  him  ; 
when,  finding  himself  relieved  of  the  presence  of  his  unwelcome 

conductor,  he  ventured  to  address  his  former  friend  Mrs.  D  , 

whom  he  saw  sitting,  as  had  been  her  wont  on  earth,  absorbed 
at  loo,  requesting  her  to  rest  from  the  game,  and  introduce  him 
to  the  pleasures  of  the  place,  which  appeared  to  him  to  be  very 
unlike  what  he  had  expected,  and,  indeed,  an  extremely  agree- 
able one.  But,  with  a  cry  of  agony,*  she  answered  that  there 
was  no  rest  in  hell ;  that  they  must  ever  toil  on  at  those  very 
pleasures  :  and  innumerable  voices  echoed  through  the  intermi- 
nable vaults,  "  There  is  no  rest  in  hell !"  —  while,  throwing  open 
their  vests,  each  disclosed  in  his  bosom  an  ever-burning  flame  ! 
These,  they  said,  were  the  pleasures  of  hell :  their  choice  on 
earth  was  now  their  inevitable  doom  !  In  the  midst  of  the 
horror  this  scene  inspired,  his  conductor  returned,  and  at  his 
earnest  entreaty,  restored  him  again  to  earth  ;  but,  as  he  quit- 
ted him,  he  said,  "  Remember  !  — in  a  year  and  a  day  we  meet 
again  !" 

At  this  crisis  of  his  dream,  the  sleeper  awoke,  feverish  and 
ill ;  and,  whether  from  the  effect  of  his  dream,  or  of  his  prece- 


236 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


ding  orgies,  he  was  so  unwell  as  to  be  obliged  to  keep  his  bed 
for  several  days,  during  which  period  he  had  time  for  many 
serious  reflections,  which  terminated  in  a  resolution  to  abandon 
the  club  and  his  licentious  companions  altogether. 

He  was  no  sooner  well,  however,  than  they  flocked  around 
him,  bent  on  recovering  so  valuable  a  member  of  their  society ; 
and  having  wrung  from  him  a  confession  of  the  cause  of  his 
defection,  which,  as  may  be  supposed,  appeared  to  them  emi- 
nently ridiculous,  they  soon  contrived  to  make  him  ashamed  of 
his  good  resolutions.  He  joined  them  again,  resumed  his  for- 
mer course  of  life,  and  when  the  annual  saturnalia  came  round, 
he  found  himself  with  his  glass  in  his  hand  at  the  table  —  when 
the  president,  rising  to  make  the  accustomed  speech,  began 
with  saying,  "  Gentlemen,  this  being  leap-year,  it  is  a  year  and 
a  day  since  our  last  anniversary,"  &c,  &c.  The  words  struck 
upon  the  young  man's  ear  like  a  knell ;  but,  ashamed  to  expose 
his  weakness  to  the  jeers  of  his  companions,  he  sat  out  the  feast, 
plying  himself  with  wine  even  more  liberally  than  usual,  in 
order  to  drown  his  intrusive  thoughts ;  till,  in  the  gloom  of  a 
winter's  morning,  he  mounted  his  horse  to  ride  home.  Some 
hours  afterward,  the  horse  was  found,  with  his  saddle  and  bridle 
on,  quietly  grazing  by  the  roadside,  about  half  way  between  the 

city  and  Mr.  B  's  house ;  while,  a  few  yards  off,  lay  the 

corpse  of  his  master  ! 

Now,  as  I  have  said  in  introducing  this  story,  it  is  no  fiction: 
the  circumstance  happened  as  here  related.  An  account  of  it 
was  published  at  the  time,  but  the  copies  were  bought  up  by 
the  family.  Two  or  three,  however,  were  preserved,  and  the 
narrative  has  been  reprinted. 

The  dream  is  evidently  of  a  symbolical  character,  and  accords 
in  a  very  remarkable  degree  with  the  conclusions  to  be  drawn 
from  the  sources  I  have  above  indicated.  The  interpretation 
seems  to  be,  that  the  evil  passions  and  criminal  pursuits  which 
have  been  indulged  in  here,  become  our  curse  hereafter.  I  do 
not  mean  to  imply  that  the  ordinary  amusements  of  life  are 
criminal  —  far  from  it.  There  is  no  harm  in  dancing,  nor  in 
playing  at  loo  either ;  but  if  people  make  these  things  the  whole 


THE  FUTURE  THAT  AWAITS  US. 


237 


business  of  their  lives,  and  think  of  nothing  else,  cultivating  no 
higher  tastes,  nor  forming  no  higher  aspirations,  what  sort  of 
preparation  are  they  making  for  another  world  ?  I  can  hardly 
imagine  that  anybody  would  wish  to  be  doing  these  things  to 
all  eternity,  the  more  especially  that  it  is  most  frequently  ennui 
that  drives  their  votaries  into  excesses,  even  here ;  but  if  they 
have  allowed  their  minds  to  be  entirely  absorbed  in  such  fri- 
volities and  trivialities,  surely  they  can  not  expect  that  God  will, 
by  a  miracle,  suddenly  obliterate  these  tastes  and  inclinations, 
and  inspire  them  with  others  better  suited  to  their  new  condi- 
tion !  It  was  their  business  to  do  that  for  themselves,  while 
here ;  and  such  a  process  of  preparation  is  not  in  the  slightest 
degree  inconsistent  with  the  enjoyment  of  all  manner  of  harm- 
less pleasures ;  on  the  contrary,  it  gives  the  greatest  zest  to 
them;  for  a  life,  in  which  there  is  nothing  serious  —  in  which 
all  is  play  and  diversion  — is,  beyond  doubt,  next  to  a  life  of 
active,  persevering  wickedness,  the  saddest  thing  under  the 
sun !  But  let  everybody  remember  that  we  see  in  nature  no 
violent  transitions  ;  everything  advances  by  almost  insensible 
steps  —  at  least  everything  that  is  to  endure:  and  therefore  to 
expect  that  because  they  have  quitted  their  fleshly  bodies,  which 
they  always  knew  were  but  a  temporary  appurtenance,  doomed 
to  perish  and  decay,  they  themselves  are  to  undergo  a  sudden 
and  miraculous  conversion  and  purification,  which  is  to  elevate 
them  into  fit  companions  for  the  angels  of  heaven,  and  the 
blessed  that  have  passed  away,  is  surely  one  of  the  most  incon- 
sistent, unreasonable,  and  pernicious  errors,  that  mankind  ever 
indulged  in ! 


238 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

THE   POWER  OF  WILL. 

The  power,  be  it  what  it  may,  whether  of  dressing  up  an 
ethereal  visible  form,  or  of  acting  on  the  constructive  imagina- 
tion of  the  seer,  which  would  enable  a  spirit  to  appear  "  in  his 
habit  as  he  lived,"  would  also  enable  him  to  present  any  other 
object  to  the  eye  of  the  seer,  or  himself  in  any  shape,  or  fulfil- 
ling any  function  he  willed  ;  and  we  thus  find  in  various  in- 
stances, especially  those  recorded  in  the  Seeress  of  Prevorst, 
that  this  is  the  case.  We  not  only  see  changes  of  dress,  but 
we  see  books,  pens,  writing  materials,  &c,  in  their  hands ;  and 
we  find  a  great  variety  of  sounds  imitated — which  sounds  are 
frequently  heard,  not  only  by  those  who  have  the  faculty  of 
"discerning  of  spirits,"  as  St.  Paul  says,  but  also  by  every  other 
person  on  the  spot,  for  the  hearing  these  sounds  does  not  seem 
to  depend  on  any  particular  faculty  on  the  part  of  the  auditor, 
except  it  be  in  the  case  of  speech.  The  hearing  the  speech  of 
a  spirit,  on  the  contrary,  appears  in  most  instances  to  be  de- 
pendent on  the  same  conditions  as  the  seeing 'it,  which  may 
possibly  arise  from  there  being,  in  fact,  no  audible  voice  at  all, 
but  the  same  sort  of  spiritual  communication  which  exists  be- 
tween a  magnetizer  and  his  patient,  wherein  the  sense  is  con- 
veyed without  words. 

This  imitating  of  sounds  I  shall  gtve  several  instances  of  in  a 
future  chapter.  It  is  one  way  in  which  a  death  is  frequently 
indicated.  I  could  quote  a  number  of  examples  of  this  descrip- 
tion, but  shall  confine  myself  to  two  or  three. 

Mrs.  D  ,  being  one  night  in  her  kitchen,  preparing  to  go 

to  bed,  after  the  house  was  shut  up  and  the  rest  of  the  family 
retired,  was  startled  by  hearing  a  foot  coming  along  the  pas- 


THE  POWER  OF  WILL. 


239 


snge,  which  she  recognised  distinctly  to  be  that  of  her  father, 
who  she  was  quite  certain  was  not  in  the  house.  It  advanced 
to  the  kitchen-door,  and  she  waited  with  alarm  to  see  if  the 
door  was  to  open;  but  it  did  not,  and  she  heard  nothing  more. 
On  the  following  day,  she  found  that  her  father  had  died  at  that 
time  ;  and  it  was  from  her  niece  I  heard  the  circumstance. 

A  Mr.  J  S  ,  belonging  to  a  highly  respectable  family, 

with  whom  I  am  acquainted,  having  been  for  some  time  in  de- 
clining health,  was  sent  abroad  for  change  of  air.  During  his 
absence,  one  of  his  sisters,  having  been  lately  confined,  an  old 
servant  of  the  family  was  sitting  half  asleep  in  an  arm-chair,  in 
a  room  adjoining  that  in  which  the  lady  slept,  when  she  was 

startled  by  hearing  the  foot  of  Mr.  J  S  ascending  the 

stairs.  It  was  easily  recognisable,  for,  owing  to  his  constant 
confinement  to  the  house,  in  consequence  of  his  infirm  health, 
his  shoes  were  always  so  dry  that  their  creaking  was  heard  from 
one  end  of  the  house  to  the  other.  So  far  surprised  out  of  her 
recollection  as  to  forget  he  was  not  in  the  country,  the  good 
woman  started  up,  and,  rushing  out  with  her  candle  in  her  hand, 

to  light  him,  she  followed  the  steps  up  to  Mr.  J  S  's 

■own  bed-chamber,  never  discovering  that  he  was  not  preceding 
her  till  she  reached  the  door.  She  then  returned,  quite  amazed, 
and  having  mentioned  the  occurrence  to  her  mistress,  they  no- 
ted the  date ;  and  it  was  afterward  ascertained  that  the  young 
man  had  died  at  Lisbon  on  that  night. 

Mrs.  F          tells  me  that,  being  one  morning,  at  eleven 

o'clock,  engaged  in  her  bedroom,  she  suddenly  heard  a  strange, 
indescribable,  sweet,  but  unearthly  sound,  which  apparently 
proceeded  from  a  large  open  box  which  stood  near  her.  She 
was  seized  with  an  awe  and  a  horror  which  there  seemed  noth- 
ing to  justify,  and  fled  up 'stairs  to  mention  the  circumstance, 
which  she  could  not  banish  from  her  mind.  At  that  precise 
day  and  hour,  eleven  o'clock,  her  brother  was  drowned.  The 
news  reached  her  two  days  afterward. 

Instances  of  this  kind  are  so  well  known  that  it  is  unnecessary 
to  multiply  them  further.  With  respect  to  the  mode  of  produ- 
cing these  sounds,  however,  I  should  be  glad  to  say  something 


210 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


more  definite  if  I  could  ;  but,  from  the  circumstance  of  their 
being  heard  not  only  by  one  person,  who  might  be  supposed  to 
be  en  rapport,  or  whose  constructive  imagination  might,  be  acted 
upon,  but  by  any  one  who  happens  to  be  within  hearing,  we  are 
led  to  conclude  that  the  sounds  are  really  reverberating  through 
the  atmosphere.  In  the  strange  cases  recorded  in  "  The  Seeress 
of  Prevorst,"  although  the  apparitions  were  visible  only  to  cer- 
tain persons,  the  sounds  they  made  were*  audible  to  all;  and 
the  seeress  says  they  are  produced  by  means  of  the  nerve-spirit, 
which  I  conclude  is  the  spiritual  body  of  St.  Paul  and  the  at- 
mosphere, as  we  produce  sound  by  means  of  our  material  body 
and  the  atmosphere. 

In  this  plastic  power  of  the  spirit  to  present  to  the  eye  of  the 
seer  whatever  object  it  wills,  we  find  the  explanation  of  such 
stories  as  the  famous  one  of  Ficinus  and  Mercatus,  related  by 
Baronius  in  his  annals.  These  two  illustrious  friends,  Michael 
Mercatus  and  Marcellinus  Ficinus,  after  a  long  discourse  on 
the  nature  of  the  soul,  had  agreed  that,  if  possible,  which- 
ever died  first  should  return  to  visit  the  other.  Some  time 
afterward,  while  Mercatus  was  engaged  in  study  at  an  early 
hour  in  the  morning,  he  suddenly  heard  the  noise  of  a  horse  * 
galloping  in  the  street,  which  presently  stopped  at  his  door, 
and  the  voice  of  his  friend  Ficinus  exclaimed  :  "  Oh,  Michael ! 
oh,  Michael !  vera  sunt  ilia!  —  those  things  are  true  !"  Where- 
upon Mercatus  hastily  opened  his  window  and  espied  his  friend 
Ficinus  on  a  white  steed.  He  called  after  him,  but  he  galloped 
away  out  of  his  sight.  On  sending  to  Florence  to  inquire  for 
Ficinus,  he  learned  that  he  had  died  about  that  hour  he  called 
to  him.  From  this  period  to  that  of  his  death,  Mercatus  aban- 
doned all  profane  studies,  and  addicted  himself  wholly  to  divin- 
ity. Baronius  lived  in  the  sixteenth  century ;  and  even  Dr. 
Ferrier  and  the  spectral  illusionists  admit  that  the  authenticity 
of  this  story  can  not  be  disputed,  although  they  still  claim  it  for 
their  own. 

Not  very  many  years  ago,  Mr.  C  ,  a  staid  citizen  of  Edin- 
burgh—  whose  son  told  me  the  story  —  was  one  day  riding 
gently  up  Corstorphina  hill,  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  city, 


THE  POWER  OF  WILL. 


241 


when  he  observed  an  intimate  friend  of  his  own,  on  horseback 
also,  immediately  behind  him  ;  so  he  slackened  his  pace  to  give 
him  an  opportunity  of  joining  company.  Finding  he  did  not 
come  up  so  quickly  as  he  should,  he  looked  round  again,  and 
was  astonished  at  no  longer  seeing  him,  since  there  was  no  side 
road  into  which  he  could  have  disappeared.  He  returned 
home,  perplexed  at  the  oddness  of  the  circumstance,  when  the 
first  thing  he  learned  was  that  during  his  absence  this  friend 
had  been  killed,  by  his  horse  falling,  in  Candlemaker's  row. 

I  have  heard  of  another  circumstance,  which  occurred  some 
years  ago  in  Yorkshire,  where,  I  think,  a  farmer's  wife  was 
seen  to  ride  into  a  farm-yard  on  horseback,  but  could  not  be 
afterward  found,  or  the  thing  accounted  for,  till  it  was  ascer- 
tained that  she  had  died  at  that  period. 

There  are  very  extraordinary  stories  extant  in  all  countries, 
of  persons  being  anftoyed  by  appearances  in  the  shape  of  dif- 
ferent animals,  which  one  would  certainly  be  much  disposed 
to  give  over  altogether  to  the  illusionists ;  though,  at  the  same 
time,  it.  is  very  difficult  to  reduce  some  of  the  circumstances 
under  that  theory  —  especially  one  mentioned  page  307  of  my 
"Translation  of  the  Seeress  of  Prevorst."  If  they  are  not  illu- 
sions, they  are  phenomena,  to  be  attributed  either  to  this  plas- 
tic power,  or  to  that  magico-magnetic  influence  in  which  the 
belief  in  lycanthropy  and  other  strange  transformations  have 
originated.  The  multitudes  of  unaccountable  stories  of  this 
description  recorded  in  the  witch  trials,  have  long  furnished  a 
subject  of  perplexity  to  everybody  who  was  sufficiently  just  to 
human  nature  to  conclude,  that  there  must  have  been  some 
strange  mystery  at  the  bottom  of  an  infatuation  that  prevailed  so 
universally,  and  in  which  so  many  sensible,  honest,  and  well- 
meaning  persons  were  involved.  Till  of  late  years,  when  some 
of  the  arcana  of  animal  or  vital  magnetism  have  been  disclosed 
to  us,  it'  was  impossible  for  us  to  conceive  by  what  means  such 
strange  conceptions  could  prevail ;  but  since  we  now  know, 
and  many  of  us  have  witnessed,  that  all  the  senses  of  a  patient 
are  frequently  in  such  subjection  to  his  magnetiser,  that  they 
may  be  made  to  convey  any  impressions  to  the  brain  that  mag- 

11 


242 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


netiser  wills,  we  can  without  much  difficulty  conceive  now  thig 
belief  in  the  power  of  transformation  took  its  rise  ;  and  we  also 
know  how  a  magician  could  render  himself  visible  or  invisible 
at  pleasure.  I  have  seen  the  sight  or  hearing  of  a  patient  taken 
away,  and  restored  by  Mr.  Spencer  Hall  in  a  manner  that  could 
leave  no  doubt  on  the  mind  of  the  beholder — the  evident  pa- 
ralysis of  the  eye  of  the  patient  testifying  to  the  fact.  Monsieur 
Eusebe  Salverte,  the  most  determined  of  rationalistic  skeptics, 
admits  that  we  have  numerous  testimonies  to  the  existence  of 
an  art,  which  he  confesses  himself  at  some  loss  to  explain, 
although  the  opposite  quarters  from  which  the  accounts  of  it 
reach  us,  render  it  difficult  to  imagine  that  the  historians  have 
copied  each  other.  The  various  transformations  of  the  gods 
into  eagles,  bulls,  &c,  have  been  set  down  as  mere  mythologi- 
cal fables ;  but  they  appear  to  have  been  founded  on  an  art, 
known  in  all  quarters  of  the  world,  which  enabled  the  magician 
to  take  on  a  form  that  was  not  his  own,  so  as  to  deceive  his 
nearest  and  dearest  friends.  In  the  history  of  Gengis  Khan, 
there  is  mention  of  a  city  which  he  conquered  —  "in  which 
dwelt,"  says  Suidas,  "  certain  men,  who  possessed  the  secret 
of  surrounding  themselves  with  deceptive  appearances,  inso- 
much that  they  were  able  to  represent  themselves  to  the  eyes 
of  people  quite  different  to  what  they  really  were."  Saxo 
Grammaticus,  in  speaking  of  the  traditions  connected  with  the 
religion  of  Odin,  says  that  "  the  magi  were  very  expert  in  the 
art  of  deceiving  the  eyes,  being  able  to  assume,  and  even  to 
enable  others  to  assume,  the  forms  of  various  objects,  and  to 
conceal  their  real  aspects  under  the  most  attractive  appear- 
ances." 

John  of  Salisbury,  who  seems  to  have  drawn  his  infor- 
mation from  sources  now  lost,  says  that  "  Mercury,  the  most 
expert  of  magicians,  had  the  art  of  fascinating  the  eyes  of  men 
to  such  a  degree  as  to  render  people  invisible,  or  make  them 
appear  in  forms  quite  different  to  what  they  really  bore.  We 
also  learn  from  an  eye-witness  that  Simon,  the  magician,  pos- 
sessed the  secret  of  making  another  person  resemble  him  so 
perfectly  that  every  eye  was  deceived.     Pomponius  Mela 


THE  POWER  OF  WILL. 


243 


affirms  that  the  druidesses  of  the  island  of  Sena  could  transform 
themselves  into  any  animal  they  chose,  and  Proteus  has  become 
a  proverb  by  his  numerous  metamorphoses. 

Then,  to  turn  to  another  age  and  another  hemisphere,  we  find 
Joseph  Acosta,  who  resided  a  long  time  in  Peru,  assuring  us 
that  there  existed  at  that  period  magicians  who  had  the  power 
of  assuming  any  form  they  chose.  He  relates  that  the  prede- 
cessor of  Montezuma,  having  sent  to  arrest  a  certain  chief,  the 
latter  successively  transformed  himself  into  an  eagle,  a  tiger, 
and  an  immense  serpent ;  and  so  eluded  the  envoys,  till,  having 
consented  to  obey  the  king's  mandate,  he  was  carried  to  court 
and  instantly  executed. 

The  same  perplexing  exploits  are  confidently  attributed  to 
the  magicians  of  the  West  Indies ;  and  there  were  two  men 
eminent  among  the  natives,  the  one  called  Gomez  and  the  other 
Gonzalez,  who  possessed  this  art  in  an  eminent  degree ;  but 
both  fell  victims  to  the  practice  of  it,  being  shot  during  the  pe- 
riod of  their  apparent  transformations. 

It  is  also  recorded  that  Nanuk,  the  founder  of  the  Sikhs  — 
who  are  not  properly  a  nation,  but  a  religious  sect. —  was  vio- 
lently opposed  by  the  Hindoo  zealots ;  and  at  one  period  of 
his  career,  when  he  visited  Vatala,  the  Yogiswaras  —  who  were 
recluses,  that,  by  means  of  corporeal  mortifications,  were  sup- 
posed to  have  acquired  command  over  the  powers  of  nature  — 
were  so  enraged  against  him,  that  they  strove  to  terrify  him  by 
their  enchantments,  assuming  the  shapes  of  tigers  and  serpents. 
But  they  could  not  succeed,  for  Nanuk  appears  to  have  been  a 
real  philosopher,  who  taught  a  pure  theism,  and  inculcated  uni- 
versal peace  and  toleration.  His  tenets,  like  the  tenets  of  the 
founders  of  all  religions,  have  been  since  corrupted  by  his  fol- 
lowers. We  can  scarcely  avoid  concluding  that  the  power  by 
which  these  feats  were  performed  is  of  the  same  nature  as  that 
by  which  a  magnetiser  persuades  his  patient  that  the  water  he 
drinks  is  beer,  or  the  beer  wine ;  and  the  analogy  between  it 
and  that  by  which  I  have  supposed  a  spirit  to  present  himself, 
with  such  accompaniments  as  he  desires,  to  the  eye  of  a  specta-  • 
tor,  is  evident.    In  those  instances  where  female  figures  are 


244  THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 

seen  with  children  in  their  arm,  the  appearance  of  the  child  we 
must  suppose  to  be  produced  in  this  manner. 

Spirits  of  darkness,  however,  can  not,  as  I  have  before  ob- 
served, appear  as  spirits  of  light ;  the  moral  nature  can  not  be 
disguised.  On  one  occasion,  when  Frederica  Hauffe  asked  a 
spirit  if  he  could  appear  in  what  form  he  pleased,  he  answered 
"  No" — that  if  he  had  lived  as  a  brute,  he  should  appear  as  a 
brute  :     as  our  dispositions  are,  so  we  appear  to  you."" 

This  plastic  power  is  exhibited  in  those  instances  I  have 
related,  where  the  figure  appeared  dripping  with  water,  indi- 
cating the  kind  of  death  that  had  been  suffered ;  and  also  in 
such  cases  as  that  of  Sir  Robert  H.  E  ,  where  the  appari- 
tion showed  a  wound  in  his  breast.  There  are  a  vast  number 
of  similar  ones  on  record  in  all  countries;  —  but  I  will  here 
mention  one  which  I  received  from  the  lips  of  a  member  of  the 
family  concerned,  wherein,  one  of  the  trivial  actions  of  life  was 
curiously  represented. 

Miss  L          lived  in  the  country  with  her  three  brothers,  to 

whom  she  was  much  attached,  as  they  were  to  her.  These 
young  men,  who  amused  themselves  all  the  morning  with  their 
out-door  pursuits,  were  in  the  habit  of  coming  to  her  apartment 
most  days  before  dinner,  and  conversing  with  her  till  they  were 
summoned  to  the  dining-room.  One  day,  when  two  of  them 
had  joined  her  as  usual,  and  they  were  chatting  cheerfully  over 
the  fire,  the  door  opened,  and  the  third  came  in,  crossed  the 
room,  entered  an  adjoining  one,  took  off  his  boots,  and  then, 
instead  of  sitting  down  beside  them  as  usual,  passed  again 
through  the  room,  went  out,  leaving  the  door  open,  and  they 
saw  him  ascend  the  stairs  toward  his  own  chamber,  whither 
they  concluded  he  was  gone  to  change  his  dress.  These  pro- 
ceedings had  been  observed  by  the  whole  party :  they  saw  him 
enter  —  saw  him  take  off  his  boots  —  saw  him  ascend  the  stairs, 
—  continuing  the  conversation,  without  the  slightest  suspicion  of 
anything  extraordinary.  Presently  afterward  the  dinner  was 
announced  ;  and  as  this  young  man  did  not  make  his  appear- 
ance, the  servant  was  desired  to  let  him  know  they  were  wait- 
ing for  him.    The  servant  answered  that  he  had  not  come  in 


THE  POWER  OF  WILL. 


245 


yet;  but,  being  told  that  he  would  find  him  in  his  bedroom,  he 
went  up  stairs  to  call  him.  He  was,  however,  not  there  nor  in 
the  house ;  nor  were  his  boots  to  be  found  where  he  had  been 
seen  to  take  them  off.  While  they  were  yet  wondering  what 
could  have  become  of  him,  a  neighbor  arrived  to  break  the 
news  to  the  family  that  their  beloved  brother  had  been  killed 
while  hunting,  and  that  the  only  wish  he  expressed  was  that  he 
could  live  to  see  his  sister  onc^more. 

I  observed  in  a  former  chapter,  while  speaking  of  wraiths, 
now  very  desirable  it  would  be  to  ascertain  whether  the  phe- 
nomenon takes  place  before  or  after  the  dissolution  of  the  bond 
between  soul  and  body  :  I  have  since  received  the  most  entire 
satisfaction  on  that  head,  so  far  as  the  establishing  the  fact  that 
it  does  sometimes  occur  after  the  dissolution.  Three  cases 
have  been  presented  to  me,  from  the  most  undoubted  authority, 
in  which  the  wraith  was  seen  at  intervals  varying  from  one  to 
three  days  after  the  decease  of  the  person  whose  image  it  was ; 
very  much  complicating  the  difficulty  of  that  theory  which  con- 
siders these  phenomena  the  result  of  an  interaction,  wherein 
the  vital  principle  of  one  person  is  able  to  influence  another 
within  its  sphere,  and  thus  make  the  organs  of  that  other  the 
subjects  of  its  will  —  a  magical  power,  by  the  way,  which  far 
exceeds  that  which  we  possess  over  our  own  organs.  There  is 
here,  however,  where  death  has  taken  place,  no  living  organism 
to  produce  the  effect,  and  the  phenomenon  becomes,  therefore, 
purely  subjective  —  a  mere  spectral  illusion,  attended  by  a  coin- 
cidence, or  elsenhe  influence  is  that  of  the  disembodied  spirit; 
and  those  who  will  take  the  trouble  of  investigating  this  sub- 
ject will  find  that  the  number  of  these  coincidences  would  vio- 
late any  theory  of  probabilities,  to  a  degree  that  precludes  the 
acceptance  of  that  explanation.  I  do  not  see,  therefore,,  on 
what  we  are  to  fall  back,  except  it  be  the  willing  agency  of  the 
released  spirit,  unless  we  suppose  that  the  operation  of  the  will 
of  the  dying  person  travelled  so  slowly,  that  it  did  not  take 
effect  till  a  day  or  two  after  it  was  exerted — an  hypothesis  too 
extravagant  to  be  admitted. 

Dr.  Passavent,  whose  very  philosophical  work  on  this  occult 


246 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


department  of  nature  is  well  worth  attention,  considers  the  fact 
of  these  appearances  far  too  well  established  to  be  disputed ; 
and  he  enters  into  some  curious  disquisitions  with  regard  to 
what  the  Germans  call  far-working,  or  the  power  of  acting  on 
bodies  at  a  distance  without  any  sensible  conductor,  instancing 
the  case  of  a  gymnotus,  which  was  kept  alive  for  four  months 
in  Stockholm,  and  which,  when  urged  by  hunger,  could  kill 
fish  at  a  distance  without  contact,  adding  that  it  rarely  miscalcu- 
lated the  amount  of  the  shock  necessary  to  its  purpose.  These 
and  all  such  effects  are  attributed  by  this  school  of  physiologists 
to  the  supposed  imponderable — the  nervous  ether  I  have  else- 
where mentioned  —  which  Dr.  Passavent  conceives,  in  cases  of 
somnambulism,  certain  sicknesses,  and  the  approach  of  death, 
to  be  less  closely  united  to  its  material  conductors,  the  nerves, 
and  therefore  capable  of  being  more  or  less  detached,  and  act- 
ing at  a  distance,  especially  on  those  with  whom  relationship, 
friendship,  or  love,  establishes  a  rapport,  or  polarity ;  and  he 
observes  that  intervening  substances  or  distance  can  no  more 
impede  this  agency  than  they  do  the  agency  of  mineral  magnet- 
ism. And  he  considers  that  we  must  here  seek  for  the  expla- 
nation of  those  curious  so-called  coincidences  of  pictures  falling, 
and  clocks  and  watches  stopping,  at  the  moment  of  a  death, 
which  we  frequently  find  recorded. 

With  respect  to  the  wraiths,  he  observes  that  the  more  the 
ether  is  freed,  as  by  trance  or  the  immediate  approach  of  death, 
the  more  easily  the  soul  sets  itself  in  rapport  with  distant  per- 
sons;  and  that  thus  it  either  acts  magically,  "so  that  the  seer 
perceives  the  real  actual  body  of  the  person  that  is  acting  upon 
him,  or  else  that  he  sees  the  ethereal  body,  which  presents  the 
perfect  form  of  the  fleshly  one,  and  which,  while  the  organic 
life  proceeds,  can  be  momentarily  detached  and  appear  else- 
where ;  and  this  ethereal  body  he  holds  to  be  the  fundamental 
form,  of  which  the  external  body  is  only  the  copy,  or  husk. 

I  confess,  I  much  prefer  this  theory  of  Dr.  Passavent's,  which 
6eems  to  me  to  go  very  much  to  the  root  of  the  matter.  We 
have  here  the  "  spiritual  body"  of  St.  Paul,  and  the  "  nerve- 
spirit"  of  the  somnambulists,  and  their  magical  effects  are 


THE  POWER  OF  WILL. 


247 


scarcely  more  extraordinary,  if  properly  considered,  lhari  their 
agency  on  our  own  material  bodies.  It  is  this  ethereal  body 
which  obeys  the  intelligent  spirit  within,  and  which  is  the  inter- 
mediate  agent  between  the  spirit  and  the  fleshly  body.  We 
here  find  the  explanation  of  wraiths,  while  persons  are  in  trance, 
or  deep  sleep,  or  comatose,  this  ethereal  body  can  be  detached 
and  appear  elsewhere ;  and  I  think  there  can  be  no  great  diffi- 
culty for  those  who  can  follow  us  so  far,  to  go  a  little  further, 
and  admit  that  this  ethereal  body  must  be  indestructible,  and 
survive  the  death  of  the  material  one  ;  and  that  it  may,  there- 
fore, not  only  become  visible  to  us  under  given  circumstances, 
but  that  it  may,  also,  produce  effects  bearing  some  similarity  to 
thcoe  it  was  formerly  capable  of,  since,  in  acting  on  our  bodies 
during  life,  it  is  already  acting  on  a  material  substance  in  a 
manner  so  incomprehensible  to  us,  that  we  might  well  apply 
the  word  magical  when  speaking  of  it,  were  it  not  that  custom 
has  familiarized  us  to  the  marvel. 

It  is  to  be  observed,  that  this  idea  of  a  spiritual  body  is  one 
that  pervaded  all  Christendom  in  the  earlier  and  purer  ages  of 
Christianity,  before  priestcraft  —  and  by  priestcraft  I  mean  the 
priestcraft  of  all  denominations  —  had  overshadowed  and  ob- 
scured, by  its  various  sectarian  heresies,  the  pure  teaching  of 
Jesus  Christ. 

Dr.  Ennemoser  mentions  a  curious  instance  of  this  actio  in 
distans,  or  far-working.  It  appears  that  Van  Helmont  having 
asserted  that  it  was  possible  for  a  man  to  extinguish  the  life  of 
an  animal  by  the  eye  alone  (oculis  intentis),  Rousseau,  the  natu- 
ralist, repeated  the  experiment,  when  in  the  East,  and  in  this 
manner  killed  several  toads ;  but  on  a  subsequent  occasion, 
while  trying  the  same  experiment  at  Lyons,  the  animal,  on  find- 
ing it  could  not  escape,  fixed  its  eyes  immovably  on  him,  so 
that  he  fell  into  a  fainting  fit,  and  was  thought  to  be  dead.  He 
was  restored  by  means  of  theriacum  and  viper  powder — a  truly 
homeopathic  remedy !  However,  we  here  probably  see  the 
origin  of  the  universal  popular  persuasion,  that  there  is  some 
mysterious  property  in  the  eye  of  a  toad ;  and  also  of  the,  so 
called,  superstition  of  the  evil  eye. 


248 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


A  very  remarkable  circumstance  occurred  some  years  ago, 
at  Kirkaldy,  when  a  person,  for  whose  truth  and  respectability 

I  can  vouch,  was  living  in  the  family  of  a  Colonel  M  ,  at 

that  place.  The  house  they  inhabited  was  at  one  extremity  of 
the  town,  and  stood  in  a  sort  of  paddock.    One  evening  when 

Colonel  M  had  dined  out,  and  there  was  nobody  at  home 

but  Mrs.  M  ,  her  son  (a  boy  about  twelve  years  old),  and 

Ann  the,  maid  (my  informant),  Mrs.  M  called  the  latter, 

and  directed  her  attention  to  a  soldier,  who  was  walking  back* 
ward  and  forward  in  the  drying  ground,  behind  the  house, 
where  some  linen  was  hanging  on  the  lines.  She  said  she  won- 
dered what  he  could  be  doing  there,  and  bade  Ann  fetch  in  the 
linen,  lest  he  should  purloin  any  of  it.    The  girl,  fearing  he 

might  be  some  ill-disposed  person,  felt  afraid ;  Mrs.  M  , 

however,  promising  to  watch  from  the  window,  that  nothing 
happened  to  her,  she  went ;  but  still  apprehensive  of  the  man's 
intentions,  she  turned  her  back  toward  him,  and  hastily  pulling 
down  the  linen,  she  carried  it  into  the  house  ;  he  continuing  his 
walk  the  while,  as  before,  taking  no  notice  of  her  whatever. 

Ere  long  the  colonel  returned,  and  Mrs.  M  lost  no  time  in 

taking  him  to  the  window  to  look  at  the  man,  saying  she  could 
not  conceive  what  he  could  mean  by  walking  backward  and 
forward  there  all  that  time ;  whereupon  Ann  added,  jestinglyi 

"  I  think  it 's  a  ghost,  for  my  part !"    Colonel  M  said  "  he 

would  soon  see  that,"  and  calling  a  large  dog  that  was  lying  in 
the  room,  and  accompanied  by  the  little  boy,  who  begged  to  be 
permitted  to  go  also,  he  stepped  out  and  approached  the  stran- 
ger ;  when,  to  his  surprise,  the  dog,  which  was  an  animal  of 
high  courage,  instantly  flew  back,  and  sprung  through  the  glass- 
door,  which  the  colonel  had  closed  behind  him,  shivering  the 
panes  all  around. 

The  colonel,  meantime,  advanced  and  challenged  the  man, 
repeatedly,  without  obtaining  any  answer  or  notice  whatever, 
till,  at  length,  getting  irritated,  he  raised*  a  weapon  with  which 
he  had  armed  himself,  telling  him  he  "  must  speak  or  take  the 
consequences,"  when,  just  as  he  was  preparing  to  strike,  lo! 
there  was  nobody  there  !   The  soldier  had  disappeared,  and  the 


THE  POWER  OF  WILL. 


249 


child  sunk  senseless  to  the  ground.    Colonel  M  lifted  the 

boy  in  his  arms,  and  as  he  brought  him  into  the  house,  he  said 
to  the  girl,  "  You  are  right,  Ann  ;  it  was  a  ghost !"  He  was 
exceedingly  impressed  with  this  circumstance,  and  much  regret- 
ted his  own  behavior,  and  also  the  having  taken  the  child  with 
him,  which  he  thought  had  probably  prevented  some  communi- 
cation that  was  intended.  In  order  to  repair,  if  possible,  these 
errors,  he  went  out  every  night,  and  walked  on  that  spot  for 
some  time,  in  hopes  the  apparition  would  return.  At  length 
he  said  that  he  had  seen  and  conversed  with  it ;  but  the  purport 
of  the  conversation  he  would  never  communicate  to  any  human 
being,  not  even  to  his  wife.  The  effect  of  this  occurrence  on 
his  own  character  was  perceptible  to  everybody  that  knew  him. 
He  became  grave  and  thoughtful,  and  appeared  like  one  who 
had  passed  through  some  strange  experience.  The  above- 
named  Ann  H  ,  from  whom  I  have  the  account,  is  now  a 

middle-aged  woman.  When  the  circumstance  occurred,  she 
was  about  twenty  years  of  age.  She  belongs  to  a  highly- 
respectable  family,  and  is,  and  always  has  been,  a  person  of 
unimpeachable  character  and  veracity. 

In  this  instance,  as  in  several  others  I  meet  with,  the  animal 
had  a  consciousness  of  the  nature  of  the  appearance,  while  the 
persons  around  him  had  no  suspicion  of  anything  unusual.  In 
the  foliowing  singular  case  we  must  conclude  that  attachment 
counteracted  this  instinctive  apprehension.  A  farmer  in  Ar- 
gyleshire  lost  his  wife,  and  a  few  weeks  after  her  decease,  as 
he  and  his  son  were  crossing  a  moor,  they  saw  her  sitting  on 
a  stone,  with  their  house-dog  lying  at  her  feet,  exactly  as  he 
used  to  do  when  she  was  alive.  As  they  approached  the  spot 
the  woman  vanished,  and  supposing  the  dog  must  be  equally 
visionary,  they  expected  to  see  him  vanish,  also  ;  when,  to  their 
surprise,  he  rose  and  joined  them,  and  they  found  it  was  actu- 
ally the  very  animal  of  flesh  and  blood.  As  the  place  was  at 
least  three  miles  from  any  house,  they  could  not  conceive  what 
could  have  taken  him  there.  It  was,  probably,  the  influence  of 
her  will. 

The  power  of  will  is  a  phenomenon  that  has  been  observed 

10* 


250 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


in  all  ages  of  the  world,  though  of  late  years  much  less  than  at 
an  earlier  period  ;  and,  as  it  was  then  more  frequently  exerted 
for  evil  than  good,  it  was  looked  upon  as  a  branch  of  the  art  of 
black  magic,  while  the  philosophy  of  it  being  unknown,  the 
devil  was  supposed  to  be  the  real  agent,  and  the  witch,  or  wiz- 
ard, only  his  instrument.  The  profound  belief  in  the  existence 
of  this  art  is  testified  hy  the  twelve  tables  of  Rome,  as  well  as 
by  the  books  of  Moses,  and  those  of  Plato,  &c.  It  is  extremely 
absurd  to  suppose  that  all  these  statutes  were  enacted  to  sup- 
press a  crime  which  never  existed  :  and,  with  regard  to  these 
witches  and  wizards,  we  must  remember,  as  Dr.  Ennemoser 
justly  remarks,  that  the  force  of  will  has  no  relation  to  the 
strength  or  weakness  of  the  body  :  witness  the  extraordinary 
feats  occasionally  performed  by  feeble  persons  under  excite- 
ment, &c. ;  and,  although  these  witches  and  wizards  were  fre- 
quently weak,  decrepit  people,  they  either  believed  in  their  own 
arts,  or  else  that  they  had  a  friend  or  coadjutor  in  the  devil, 
who  was  able  and  willing  to  aid  them.  They,  therefore,  did 
not  doubt  their  own  power,  and  they  had  the  one  great  requi- 
site, faith.  To  will  and  to  believe,  was  the  explanation  given 
by  the  Marquis  de  Puysegur  of  the  cures  he  performed ;  and 
this  unconsciously  becomes  the  recipe  of  all  such  men  as  Great- 
rix,  the  Shepherd  of  Dresden,  and  many  other  wonder-workers, 
and  hence  we  see  why  it  is  usually  the  humble,  the  simple  and 
the  child-like,  the  solitary,  the  recluse,  nay,  the  ignorant,  who 
exhibit  traces  of  these  occult  faculties ;  for  he  who  can  not  be- 
lieve can  not  will,  and  the  skepticism  of  the  intellect  disables 
the  magician ;  and  hence  we  say,  also,  wherefore,  in  certain 
parts  of  the  world  and  in  certain  periods  of  its  history,  these 
powers  and  practices  have  prevailed.  They  were  believed  in 
because  they  existed  ;  and  they  existed  because  they  were 
believed  in.  There  was  a  continued  interaction  of  cause  an  1 
effect  —  of  faith  and  works.  People  who  look  superficially 
at  these  things,  delight  in  saying  that  the  more  the  witches 
were  persecuted  the  more  they  abounded  ;  and  that  when  the 
persecution  ceased  we  heard  no  more  of  them.  Naturally,  the 
more  they  were  persecuted  the  more  they  believed  in  witch- 


THE  POWER  OF  WILL. 


251 


craft  and  in  themselves ;  when  persecution  ceased,  and  men  in 
authority  declared  that  there  was  no  such  thing  as  witchcraft 
or  witches,  they  lost  their  faith,  and  with  it  that  little  sover- 
eignty over  nature  that  that  faith  had  conquered. 

Here  we  also  see  an  explanation  of  the  power  attributed  to 
blessings  and  curses.  The  Word  of  God  is  creative,  and  man 
is  the  child  of  God,  made  in  his  image ;  who  never  outgrows 
his  childhood,  and  is  often  most  a  child  when  he  thinks  himself 
the  wisest,  for  "  the  wisdom  of  this  world,"  we  can  not  too  often 
repeat,  "is  foolishness  before  God"  —  and  being  a  child,  his 
faculties  are  feeble  in  proportion  ;  but  though  limited  in  amount, 
they  are  divine  in  kind,  and  are  latent  in  all  of  us ;  still  shoot- 
ing up  here  and  there,  to  amaze  and  perplex  the  wise,  and 
make  merry  the  foolish,  who  have  nearly  all  alike  forgotten 
their  origin,  and  disowned  their  birthright. 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE 


CHAPTER  XII. 

TROUBLED  SPIRITS. 

A  very  curious  circumstance,  illustrative  of  the  power  o 
will,  was  lately  narrated  to  me  by  a  Greek  gentleman,  to  whos 

uncle  it  occurred.    His  uncle,  Mr.  M  ,  was  some  years  ag 

travelling  in  Magnesia  with  a  friend,  when  they  arrived  on 
evening  at  a  caravanserai,  where  they  found  themselves  unpr 
vided  with  anything  to  eat.    It  was  therefore  agreed  that  on 
should  go  forth  and  endeavor  to  procure  food  ;  and  the  frien 
offering  to  undertake  the  office,  Mr.  M—  stretched  himsel 
on  the  floor  to  repose.    Some  time  had  elapsed,  and  his  frien 
had  not  yet  returned,  when  his  attention  was  attracted  by 
whispering  in  the  room.    He  looked  up,  but  saw  nobody,  thoug 
still  the  whispering  continued,  seeming  to  go  round  by  the  wall 
At  length  it  approached  him ;  but  though  he  felt  a  burning  se~ 
sation  on  his  cheek,  and  heard  the  whispering  distinctly,  h 
could  not  catch  the  words.    Presently  he  heard  the  footstep 
of  his  friend,* and  thought  he  was  returning;  but  though  the 
appeared  to  come  quite  close  to  him,  and  it  was  perfectly  light 
he  still  saw  nobody.    Then  he  felt  a  strange  sensation  —  a 
irresistible  impulse  to  rise  :  he  felt  himself  drawn  up,  acnr 
the  room,  out  of  the  door,  down  the  stairs  —  he  must  go,  h 
could  not  help  it  —  to  the  gate  of  the  caravanserai,  a  little  far 
ther ;  and  there  he  found  the  dead  body  of  his  friend,  who  ha 
been  suddenly  assailed  and  cut  down  by  robbers,  unhappily  t 
plenty  in  the  neighborhood  at  that  period. 

We  here  see  the  desire  of  the  spirit  to  communicate  his  fate 
to  the  survivor ;  the  imperfection  of  the  rapport,  or  the  recep- 
tivity, which  prevented  a  more  direct  intercourse ;  and  the 
exertion  of  a  magnetic  influence,  which  Mr.  M          could  not 


TROUBLED  SPIRITS. 


253 


resist,  precisely  similar  to  that  of  a  living  magnetizer  over  hi9 
patient. 

There  is  a  story  extant  in  various  English  collections,  the 
circumstances  of  which  are  said  to  have  occurred  about  the 
middle  of  the  last  century,  and  which  I  shall  here  mention,  on 
account  of  its  similarity  to  the  one  that  follows  it. 

Dr.  Bretton,  who  was,  late  in  life,  appointed  rector  of  Lud-  m 
gate,  lived  previously  in  Herefordshire,  where  he  married  the 
daughter  of  Dr.  Santer,  a  woman  of  great  piety  and  virtue. 
This  lady  died ;  and  one  day,  as  a  former  servant  of  hers  —  to 
whom  she  had  been  attached,  and  who  had  since  married  — 
was  nursing  her  child  in  her  own  cottage,  the  door  opened,  and 
a  lady  entered  so  exactly  resembling  the  late  Mrs.  Bretton  in 
dress  and  appearance,  that  she  exclaimed :  "  If  my  mistress 
were  not  dead,  I  should  think  you  were  she!"  Whereupon 
the  apparition  told  her  that  she  was,  and  requested  her  to  go 
with  her,  as  she  had  business  of  importance  to  communicate. 
Alice  objected,  being  very  much  frightened,  and  entreated  her 
to  address  herself  rather  to  Dr.  Bretton  ;  but  Mrs.  B.  answered 
that  she  had  endeavored  to  do  so,  and  had  been  several  times  in 
his  room  for  that  purpose,  but  he  was  still  asleep,  and  she  had 
no  power  to  do  more  toward  awakening  him  than  once  uncover 
his  feet.  Alice  then  pleaded  that  she  had  nobody  to  leave  with 
her  child ;  but  Mrs.  B.  promising  that  the  child  should  sleep 
till  her  return,  she  at  length  obeyed  the  summons ;  and  having 
accompanied  the  apparition  into  a  large  field,  the  latter  bade 
her  observe  how  much  she  measured  off  with  her  feet,  and,  hav- 
ing taken  a  considerable  compass,  she  bade  her  go  and  tell  her 
brother  that  all  that  portion  had  been  wrongfully  taken  from 
the  poor  by  their  father,  and  that  he  must  restore  it  to  them,  add- 
ing that  she  was  the  more  concerned  about  it,  since  her  name 
had  been  used  in  the  transaction.  Alice  then  asking  how«she 
should  satisfy  the  gentleman  of  the  truth  of  her  mission,  Mrs. 
B.  mentioned  to  her  some  circumstance  known  only  to  herself 
and  this  brother ;  she  then  entered  into  much  discourse  with 
the  woman,  and  gave  her  a  great  deal  of  good  advice,  remain- 
ing till,  hearing  the  sound  of  horse-bells,  she  said  :  "  Alice,  I 


251 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


must  be  seen  by  none  but  yourself,"  and  then  disappeared. 
Whereupon  Alice  proceeded  to  Dr.  Bretton,  who  admitted 
that  he  had  actually  heard  some  one  walking  about  his  room, 
in  a  way  he  could  not  account  for.  On  mentioning  the  thing  to 
the  brother,  he  laughed  heartily,  till  Alice  communicated  the 
secret  which  constituted  her  credentials,  upon  which  he  changed 
his  tone,  and  declared  himself  ready  to  make  the  required  res- 
titution. 

Dr.  Bretton  seems  to  have  made  no  secret  of  this  story,  but 
to  have  related  it  to  various  persons ;  and  I  think  it  is  some- 
what in  its  favor,  that  it  exhibits  a  remarkable  instance  of  the 
various  degrees  of  receptivity  of  different  individuals,  where 
there  was  no  suspicion  of  the  cause,  nor  any  attempt  made  to 
explain  why  Mrs.  Bretton  could  not  communicate  her  wishes 
to  her  husband  as  easily  as  to  Alice.  The  promising  that  the 
child  should  sleep,  was  promising  no  more  than  many  a  mag- 
netiser  could  fulfil.  There  are  several  curious  stories  extant, 
of  lame  and  suffering  persons  suddenly  recovering,  who  attrib- 
uted their  restoration  to  the  visit  of  an  apparition  which  had 
stroked  their  limbs,  &c. ;  and  these  are  the  more  curious  from 
the  fact  that  they  occurred  before  Mesmer's  time,  when  people 
in  general  knew  nothing  of  vital  magnetism.  Dr.  Binns  quotes 
the  case  of  a  person  named  Jacob  Olaffson,  a  resident  in  some 
small  island  subject  to  Denmark,  who,  after  lying  very  ill  for  a 
fortnight,  was  found  quite  well,  which  he  accounted  for  by  say- 
ing that  a  person  in  shining  clothes  had  come  to  him  in  the 
night  and  stroked  him  with  his  hand,  whereupon  he  was  pres- 
ently healed.  But  the  stroking  is  not  always  necessary,  since 
we  know  that  the  eye  and  the  will  can  produce  the  same  effect. 

The  other  case  to  which  I  alluded,  as  similar  to  that  of  Mrs. 
Bretton,  occurred  in  Germany,  and  is  related  by  Dr.  Kerner. 

The  late  Mr.  L   St.   ,  he  says,  quitted  this  world 

with  an  excellent  reputation,  being  at  the  time  superintendent 

of  an  institution  for  the  relief  of  the  poor  in  B  .    His  son 

inherited  his  property,  and,  in  acknowledgment  of  the  faithful 
services  of  his  father's  old  housekeeper,  he  took  her  into  his 
family  and  established  her  in  a  country  house,  a  few  miles  from 


TROUBLED  SPIRITS. 


255 


B  ,  which  formed  part  of  his  inheritance.    She  had  been 

settled  there  but  a  short  time,  when  she  was  awakened  in  the 
night,  she  knew  not  how,  and  saw  a  tall,  haggard-looking  man 
in  her  room,  who  was  rendered  visible  to  her  by  a  light  that 
seemed  to  issue  from  himself.  She  drew  the  bedclothes  over 
her  head  ;  but,  as  this  apparition  appeared  to  her  repeatedly, 
she  became  so  much  alarmed  that  she  mentioned  it  to  her  mas- 
ter, begging  permission  to  resign  her  situation.  He  however 
laughed  at  her — told  her  it  must  be  all  imagination  —  and 
promised  to  sleep  in  the  adjoining  apartment,  in  order  that  she 
might  call  him  whenever  this  terror  seized  her.  He  did  so ; 
but,  when  the  spectre  returned,  she  was  so  much  oppressed 
with  horror  that  she  found  it  impossible  to  raise  her  voice. 
Her  master  then  advised  her  to  inquire  the  motive  of  its  visits. 
This  she  did :  whereupon,  it  beckoned  her  to  follow,  which, 
after  some  struggles,  she  summoned  resolution  to  do.  It  then 
led  the  way  down  some  steps  to  a  passage,  where  it  pointed 
out  to  her  a  concealed  closet,  which  it  signified  to  her,  by  signs, 
she  should  open.  She  represented  that  she  had  no  key  :  where- 
upon, it  described  to  her,  in  sufficiently  articulate  words,  where 
she  would  find  one.  She  procured  the  key,  and,  on  opening 
the  closet,  found  a  small  parcel,  which  the  spirit  desired  her  to 

remit  to  the  governor  of  the  institution  for  the  poor,  at  B  , 

with  the  injunction  that  the  contents  should  be  applied  to  the 
benefit  of  the  inmates,  —  this  restitution  being  the  only  means 
whereby  he  could  obtain  rest  and  peace  in  the  other  world. 
Having  mentioned  these  circumstances  to  her  master,  who  bade 
her  do  what  she  had  been  desired,  she  took  the  parcel  to  the 
governor  and  delivered  it,  without  communicating  by  what 
means  it  had  come  into  her  hands.  Her  name  was  entered  in 
their  books  and  she  was  dismissed ;  but,  after  she  was  gone 
they  discovered  to  their  surprise  that  the  packet  contained  an 

order  for  thirty  thousand  florins,  of  which  the  late  Mr.  St.  

 had  defrauded  the  institution  and  converted  to  his  own 

use. 

Mr.  St.  ,  jr.,  was  now  called  upon  to  pay  the  money, 

which  he  refusing  to  do,  the  affair  was  at  length  referred  to 


256 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


the  authorities ;  and  the  housekeeper  being  arrested,  he  and 
she  were  confronted  in  the  court,  where  she  detailed  the  cir- 
cumstances by  which  the  parcel  had  come  into  her  possession. 

Mr.  St.   denied  the  possibility  of  the  thing,  declaring  the 

whole  must  be,  for  some  purpose  or  other,  an  invention  of  her 
own.  Suddenly,  while  making  this  defence,  he  felt  a  blow 
upon  his  shoulder,  which  caused  him  to  start  and  look  round, 
and  at  the  same  moment  the  housekeeper  exclaimed  :  "  See ! 
there  he  stands,  now  —  there  is  the  ghost!"    None  perceived 

the  figure  excepting  the  woman  herself  and  Mr.  St.  ;  but 

everybody  present  heard  the  following  words  :  "  My  son,  repair 
the  injustice  I  have  committed,  that  I  may  be  at  peace  !"  The 

money  was  paid ;  and  Mr.  St.   was  so  much  affected  by 

this  painful  event,  that  he  was  seized  with  a  severe  illness,  from 
which  he  with  difficulty  recovered. 

Dr.  Kerner  says  that  these  circumstances  occurred  in  the 
year  1816,  and  created  a  considerable  sensation  at  the  time, 

though,  at  the  earnest  request  of  the  family  of  Mr.  St.  , 

there  was  an  attempt  made  to  hush  them  up  ;  adding,  that  in 
the  month  of  October,  1819,  he  was  himself  assured  by  a  very 

respectable  citizen  of  B  ,  that  it  was  universally  known 

in  the  town  that  the  ghost  of  the  late  superintendent  had  ap- 
peared to  the  housekeeper,  and  pointed  out  to  her  where  she 
would  find  the  packet ;  that  she  had  consulted  the  minister  of 
her  parish,  who  bade  her  deliver  it  as  directed ;  that  she  had 
been  subsequently  arrested,  and  the  affair  brought  before  the 

authorities,  where,  while  makyig  his  defence,  Mr.  St.  had 

received  a  blow  from  an  invisible  hand ;  and  that  Mr.  St.  

was  so  much  affected  by  these  circumstances,  which  got  abroad 
in  spite  of  the  efforts  to  suppress  them,  that  he  did  not  long 
survive  the  event. 

Grose,  the  antiquary,  makes  himself  very  merry  with  the 
observation  that  ghosts  do  not  go  about  their  business  like  other 
people ;  and  that  in  cases  of  murder,  instead  of  going  to  the 
nearest  justice  of  peace,  or  to  the  nearest  relation  of  the  de- 
ceased, a  ghost  addresses  itself  to  somebody  who  had  nothing 
to  do  with  the  matter,  or  hovers  about  the  grave  where  its 


TROUBLED  SPIRITS. 


257 


body  is  deposited.  "  The  same  circuitous  mode  is  pursued," 
he  says,  "  with  respect  to  redressing  injured  orphans  or  widows  ; 
where  it  seems  as  if  the  shortest  and  most  certain  way  would 
be  to  go  and  haunt  the  person  guilty  of  the  injustice,  till  he 
were  terrified  into  restitution."  We  find  the  same  sort  of  stric- 
tures made  on  the  story  of  the  ghost  of  Sir  George  Villiers, 
which  —  instead  of  going  directly  to  his  son,  the  duke  of  Buck- 
ingham, to  warn  him  of  his  danger — addressed  himself  to  an 
inferior  person ;  while  the  warning  was,  after  all,  inefficacious, 
as  the  duke  would  not  take  counsel; — but  surely  such  stric- 
tures are  as  absurd  as  the  conduct  of  the  ghost :  at  least  I  think 
there  can  be  nothing  more  absurd  than  pretending  to  prescribe 
laws  to  nature,  and  judging  of  what  we  know  so  little  about. 

The  proceedings  of  the  ghost  in  the  following  case  will  doubt- 
less be  equally  displeasing  to  the  critics.  The  account  is  ex- 
tracted verbatim  from  a  work  published  by  the  Bannatyna  Club, 
and  is  entitled,  "  Authentic  Account  of  the  Appearance  of  a 
Ghost  in  Queen  Ann's  County,  Maryland,  United  States  of 
North  America,  proved  in  the  following  remarkable  trial,  from 
attested  notes  taken  in  court  at  the  time  by  one  of  the  counsel." 

It  appears  that  Thomas  Harris  had  made  some  alteration  in 
the  disposal  of  his  property,  immediately  previous  to  his  death ; 
and  that  the  family  disputed  the  will  and  raised  up  difficulties 
likely  to  be  injurious  to  his  children. 

"  William  Brigs  said,  that  he  was  forty-three  years  of  age ; 
that  Thomas  Harris  died  in  September,  in  the  year  1790.  In 
the  March  following  he  was  riding  near  the  place  where  Thomas 
Harris  was  buried,  on  a  horse  formerly  belonging  to  Thomas 
Harris.  After  crossing  a  small  branch,  his  horse  began  to  walk 
on  very  fast.  It  was  between  the  hours  of  eight  and  nine 
o'clock  in  the  morning.  He  was  alone  :  it  was  a  clear  day.  He 
entered  a  lane  adjoining  to  the  field  where  Thomas  Harris  was 
buried.  His  horse  suddenly  wheeled  in  a  panel  of  the  fence, 
looked  over  the  fence  into  the  field  where  Thomas  Harris  was 
buried,  and  neighed  very  loud.  Witness  then  saw  Thomas 
Harris  coming  toward  him,  in  the  same  apparel  he  had  last 
seen  him  in  in  his  lifetime ;  he  had  on  a  sky-blue  coat.  Just 


253  THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 

before  he  came  to  the  fence,  he  varied  to  the  right  and  van- 
ished ;  his  horse  immediately  took  the  road.  Thomas  Harris 
came  within  two  panels  of  the  fence  to  him ;  he  did  not  see  his 
features,  nor  speak  to  him.  He  was  acquainted  with  Thomas 
Harris  when  a  boy,  and  there  had  always  been  a  great  intimacy 
between  them.  He  thinks  the  horse  knew  Thomas  Harris,  be- 
cause of  his  neighing,  pricking  up  his  ears,  and  looking  over 
the  fence. 

"About  the  first  of  June  following,  he  was  ploughing  in  his 
own  field,  about  three  miles  from  where  Thomas  Harris  was 
buried.  About  dusk  Thomas  Harris  came  alongside  of  him, 
and  walked  with  him  about  two  hnndred  yards.  He  was  dressed 
as  when  first  seen.  He  made  a  halt  about  two  steps  from  him. 
J.  Bailey  who  was  ploughing  along  with  him,  came  driving  up, 
and  he  lost  sight  of  the  ghost.  He  was  much  alarmed :  not  a 
word,  was  spoken.  The  young  man  Bailey  did  not  see  him  ;  he 
did  not  tell  Bailey  of  it.  There  was  no  motion  of  any  particu- 
lar part :  he  vanished.  It  preyed  upon  his  mind  so  as  to  affect 
his  health.  He  was  with  Thomas  Harris  when  he  died,  but  had 
no  particular  conversation  with  him.  Some  time  after,  he  was 
lying  in  bed,  about  eleven  and  twelve  o'clock  at  night,  when  he 
heard  Thomas  Harris  groan ;  it  was  like  the  groan  he  gave  a 
few  minutes  before  he  expired :  Mrs.  Brigs,  his  wife,  heard  the 
groan.  She  got  up  and  searched  the  house  :  he  did  not,  because 
he  knew  the  groan  to  be  from  Thomas  Harris.  Some  time 
after,  when  in  bed,  and  a  great  fire-light  in  the  room,  he  saw  a 
shadow  on  the  wall,  and  at  the  same  time  he  felt  a  great  weight 
upon  him.  Some  time  after,  when  in  bed  and  asleep,  he  felt  a 
stroke  between  his  eyes,  which  blackened  them  both  :  his  wife 
was  in  bed  with  him,  and  two  young  men  were  in  the  room. 
The  blow  awaked  him,  and  all  in  the  room  were  asleep;  is  cer- 
tain no  one  in  the  room  struck  him  :  the  blow  swelled  his  nose, 
About  the  middle  of  August  he  was  alone,  coming  from  Hickey 
Collins's,  after  dark,  about  one  hour  in  the  night,  when  Thomas 
Harris  appeared,  dressed  as  he  had  seen  him  when  going  down 
to  the  meeting-house  branch,  three  miles  and  a  half  from  the 
graveyard  of  Thomas  Harris.    It  was  starlight.    He  extended 


TROUBLED  SPIRITS. 


259 


nis  arms  over  his  shoulders.  Does  not  know  how  long  he 
remained  in  this  situation.  He  was  much  alarmed.  Thomas 
Harris  disappeared.  Nothing  was  said.  He  felt  no  weight  on 
his  shoulders.  He  went  back  to  Collins's,  and  got  a  young 
man  to  go  with  him.  After  he  got  home  he  mentioned  it  to  the 
young  man.  He  had,  before  this,  told  James  Harris  he  had 
seen  his  brother's  ghost. 

"  In  October,  about  twilight  in  the  morning,  he  saw  Thomas 
Harris  about  one  hundred  yards  from  the  house  of  the  witness ; 
his  head  was  leaned  to  one  side  ;  same  apparel  as  before ;  his 
face  was  toward  him  ;  he  walked  fast  and  disappeared  :  there 
was  nothing  between  them  to  obstruct  the  view;  he  was  about 
fifty  yards  from  him,  and  alone ;  he  had  no  conception  why 
Thomas  Harris  appeared  to  him.  On  the  same  day,  about 
eight  o'clock  in  the  morning,  he  was  handing  up  blades  to  John 
Bailey,  who  was  stacking  them  ;  he  saw  Thomas  Harris  come 
along  the  garden  fence,  dressed  as  before ;  he  vanished,  and 
always  to  the  east ;  was  within  fifteen  feet  of  him  ;  Bailey  did 
not  see  him.  An  hour  and  a  half  afterward,  in  the  same  place, 
he  again  appeared,  coming  as  before ;  came  up  to  the  fence ; 
leaned  on  it  within  ten  feet  of  the  witness,  who  called  to  Bailey 
to  look  there  (pointing  toward  Thomas  Harris).  Bailey  asked 
what  was  there.  Don't  you  see  Harris  1  Does  not  recollect 
what  Bailey  said.  Witness  advanced  toward  Harris.  One  or 
the  other  spoke  as  witness  got  over  the  fence  on  the  same  panel 
that  Thomas  Harris  was  leaning  on.  They  walked  off  together 
about  five  hundred  yards ;  a  conversation  took  place  as  they 
walked  ;  he  has  not  the  conversation  on  his  memory.  He  could 
not  understand  Thomas  Harris,  his  voice  was  so  low.  He  asked 
Thomas  Harris  a  question,  and  he  forbid  him.  Witness  then 
asked,  1  Why  not  go  to  your  brother,  instead  of  me  V  Thomas 
Harris  said,  *  Ask  me  no  questions.'  Witness  told  him  his  will 
was  doubted.  Thomas  Harris  told  him  to  ask  his  brother  if  he 
did  not  remember  the  conversation  which  passed  between  them 
on  the  east  side  of  the  wheat-stacks,  the  day  he  was  taken  with 
his  death-sickness ;  that  he  then  declared  that  he  wished  all  his 
property  kept  together  by  James  Harris,  until  his  children 


260  THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


arrived  at  age,  then  the  whole  should  be  sold  and  divided  among 
his  children  ;  and,  should  it  be  immediately  sold,  as  expressed 
in  his  will,  that  the  property  would  be  most  wanting  to  his  chil- 
dren while  minors,  therefore  he  had  changed  his  will,  and  said 
that  witness  should  see  him  again.  He  then  told  witness  to 
turn,  and  disappeared.  He  did  not  speak  to  him  with  the  same 
voice  as  in  his  lifetime.  He  was  not  daunted  while  with 
Thomas  Harris,  but  much  afterward.  Witness  then  went  to 
James  Harris  and  told  him  that  he  had  seen  his  brother  three 
times  that  day.  Related  the  conversation  he  had  with  him. 
Asked  James  Harris  if  he  remembered  the  conversation  be- 
tween him  and  his  brother,  at  the  wheat-stack ;  he  said  he  did ; 
then  told  him  what  had  passed.  Said  he  would  fulfil  his  broth- 
er's will.  He  was  satisfied  that  witness  had  seen  his  brother, 
for  that  no  other  person  knew  the  conversation.  On  the  same 
evening,  returning  home  about  an  hour  before  sunset,  Thomas 
Harris  appeared  to  him,  and  came  alongside  of  him.  Witness 
told  him  that  his  brother  said  he  would  fulfil  his  will.  No 
more  conversation  on  this  subject.  He  disappeared.  He  had 
further  conversation  with  Thomas  Harris,  but  not  on  this  sub- 
ject. He  was  always  dressed  in  the  same  manner.  He  had 
never  related  to  any  person  the  last  conversation,  and  never 
would. 

"  Bailey,  who  was  sworn  in  the  cause,  declared  that  as  he  and 
Brigs  were  stacking  blades,  as  related  by  Brigs,  he  called  to 
witness  and  said,  *  Look  there  !  Do  you  not  see  Thomas 
Harris  V  Witness  said,  '  No.'  Brigs  got  over  the  fence,  and 
walked  some  distance  —  appeared  by  his  action  to  be  in  deep 
conversation  with  some  person.    Witness  saw  no  one. 

"  The  counsel  was  extremely  anxious  to  hear  from  Mr.  Brigs 
the  whole  of  the  conversation  of  the  ghost,  and  on  his  cross-ex- 
amination took  every  means,  without  effect,  to  obtain  it.  They 
represented  to  him,  as  a  religious  man,  he  was  bound  to  dis- 
close the  whole  truth.  He  appeared  agitated  when  applied  to, 
declaring  nothing  short  of  life  should  make  him  reveal  the 
whole  conversation,  and,  claiming  the  protection  of  the  court, 
that  he  had  declared  all  he  knew  relative  to  the  case. 


TROUBLED  SPIRITS. 


261 


"  The  court  overruled  the  question  of  the  counsel.  Hon. 
James  Tilgman,  judge. 

"  His  excellency  Robert  Wright,  late  governor  of  Maryland, 
and  the  Hon.  Joseph  H.  Nicholson,  afterward  judge  of  one  of 
the  courts  in  Maryland,  were  the  counsel  for  the  plaintiff. 

"  John  Scott  and  Richard  T.  Earl,  Esqs.,  were  counsel  for  the 
defendant." 

Here,  as  in  the  case  of  Col.  M  ,  mentioned  in  a  former 

chapter,  and  some  others  I  have  met  with,  we  find  disclosures 
made  that  were  held  sacred. 

Dr.  Kerner  relates  the  following  singular  story,  which  he 
declares  himself  to  have  received  from  the  most  satisfactory 

authority.    Agnes  B  ,  being  at  the  time  eighteen  years  of 

age,  was  living  as  servant  in  a  small  inn  at  Undenheim,  her  na- 
tive place.  The  host  and  hostess  were  quiet  old  people,  who 
generally  went  to  bed  about  eight  o'clock,  while  she  and  the 
boy,  the  only  other  servant,  were  expected  to  sit  up  till  ten, 
when  they  had  to  shut  up  the  house  and  retire  to  bed  also. 
One  evening,  as  the  host  was  sitting  on  a  bench  before  the  door, 
there  came  a  beggar,  requesting  a  night's  lodging.  The  host, 
however^  refused,  and  bade  him  seek  what  he  wanted  in  the 
village  ;  whereon  the  man  went  away. 

At  the  usual  hour  the  old  people  went  to  bed ;  and  the  two 
servants,  having  closed  the  shutters,  and  indulged  in  a  little 
gossip  with  the  watchman,  were  about  to  follow  their  example, 
when  the  beggar  came  round  the  corner  of  the  neighboring 
street,  and  earnestly  entreated  them  to  give  him  a  lodging  for 
the  night,  since  he  could  find  nobody  that  would  take  him  in. 
At  first  the  young  people  refused,  saying  they  dared  not,  with- 
out their  master's  leave  ;  but  at  length  the  entreaties  of  the  man 
prevailed,  and  they  consented*  to  let  him  sleep  in  the  barn,  on 
condition  that,  when  they  called  him  in  the  morning,  he  would 
immediately  depart.  At  three  o'clock  they  rose,  and  when  the 
boy  entered  the  barn,  to  his  dismay,  he  found  that  the  old  man 
had  expired  in  the  night.  They  were  now  much  perplexed 
with  the  apprehension  of  their  master's  displeasure ;  so,  after 
some  consultation,  they  agreed  that  the  lad  should  convey  the 


262 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


body  out  of  the  barn,  and  lay  it  in  a  dry  ditch  that  was  near  at 
hand,  where  it  would  be  found  by  the  laborers,  and  excite  no 
question,  as  they  would  naturally  conclude  he  had  laid  himself 
down  there  to  die. 

This  was  done,  the  man  was  discovered  and  buried,  and  they 
thought  themselves  well  rid  of  the  whole  affair ;  but,  on  the  fol- 
lowing night,  the  girl  was  awakened  by  the  beggar,  whom  she 
saw  standing  at  her  bedside.  He  looked  at  her,  and  then  quit- 
ted the  room  by  the  door.  "  Glad  was  I,"  she  says,  "  when  the 
day  broke ;  but  I  was  scarcely  out  of  my  room  when  the  boy 
came  to  me,  trembling  and  pale,  and,  before  I  could  say  a  word 
to  him  of  what  I  had  seen,  he  told  me  that  the  beggar  had  been 
to  his  room  in  the  night,  had  looked  at  him,  and  then  gone 
away.  He  said  he  was  dressed  as  when  we  had  seen  him  alive, 
only  he  looked  blacker,  which  I  also  had  observed." 

Still  afraid  of  incurring  blame,  they  told  nobody,  although 
the  apparition  returned  to  them  every  night ;  and  although  they 
found  removing  to  the  other  bedchambers  did  not  relieve  them 
from  his  visits.  But  the  effects  of  this  persecution  became  so 
visible  on  both,  that  much  curiosity  was  awakened  in  the  village 
with  respect  to  the  cause  of  the  alteration  observed  in  them ; 
and  at  length  the  boy's  mother  went  to  the  minister,  requesting 
him  to  interrogate  her  son,  and  endeavor  to  discover  what  was 
preying  on  his  mind.  To  him  the  boy  disclosed  their  secret ; 
and  this  minister,  who  was  a  protestant,  having  listened  with 
attention  to  the  story,  advised  him,  when  next  he  went  to  May- 
ence,  to  market,  to  call  on  Father  Joseph,  of  the  Franciscan 
convent,  and  relate  the  circumstance  to  him.  This  advice  was 
followed ;  and  Father  Joseph,  assuring  the  lad  that  the  ghost 
could  do  him  no  harm,  recommended  him  to  ask  him,  in  the 
name  of  God,  what  he  desh~ed.  JThe  boy  did  so ;  whereupon 
the  apparition  answered,  "  Ye  are  children  of  mercy,  but  I  am 
a  child  of  evil ;  in  the  barn,  under  the  straw,  you  will  find  my 
money.  Take  it ;  it  is  yours."  In  the  morning,  the  boy  found 
the  money  accordingly,  in  an  old  stocking  hid  under  the  straw; 
but  having  a  natural  horror  of  it,  they  took  it  to  their  minister, 
who  advised  them  to  divide  it  into  three  parts,  giving  one  to  the 


TROUBLED  SPIRITS. 


263 


Franciscan  convent  at  Mayence,  another  to  the  reformed  church 
in  the  village,  and  the  other  third  to  that  to  which  they  themselves 
belonged,  which  was  of  the  Lutheran  persuasion.  This  they 
did,  and  were  no  more  troubled  with  the  beggar.  With  respect 
to  the  minister  who  gave  them  this  good  advice,  I  can  only  say, 
all  honor  be  to  him  !  I  wish  there  were  many  more  such  !  The 
circumstance  occurred  in  the  year  1750,  and  is  related  by  the 

daughter  of  Agnes  B  ,  who  declared  that  she  had  frequently 

heard  it  from  her  mother. 

The  circumstance  of  this  apparition  looking  darker  than  the 
man  had  done  when  alive,  is  significant  of  his  condition,  and 
confirms  what  I  have  said  above,  namely,  that  the  moral  state 
of  the  disembodied  soul  can  no  longer  be  concealed  as  it  was  in 
the  flesh,  but  that  as  he  is,  he  must  necessarily  appear. 

There  is  an  old  saying,  that  we  should  never  lie  down  to  rest 
at  enmity  with  any  human  being ;  and  the  story  of  the  ghost  of 
the  Princess  Anna  of  Saxony,  who  appeared  to  Duke  Christian 
of  Saxe-Eisenburg,  is  strongly  confirmatory  of  the  wisdom  of 
this  axiom. 

Duke  Christian  was  sitting  one  morning  in  his  study,  when 
he  wras  surprised  by  a  knock  at  his  door  —  an  unusual  circum- 
stance, since  the  guards  as  well  as  the  people  in  waiting  were 
always  in  the  ante-room.  He,  however,  cried,  "Come  in!" 
when  there  entered,  to  his  amazement,  a  lady  in  an  ancient  cos- 
tume, who,  in  answer  to  his  inquiries,  told  him  that  she  was  no 
evil  spirit,  and  would  do  him  no  harm  ;  but  that  she  was  one 
of  his  ancestors,  and  had  been  the  wife  of  Duke  John  Casimer, 
of  Saxe-Coburg.  She  then  related  that  she  and  her  husband 
had  not  been  on  good  terms  at  the  period  of  their  deaths,  and 
that,  although  she  had  sought  a  reconciliation,  he  had  been  in- 
exorable ;  pursuing  her  with  unmitigated  hatred,  and  injuring 
her  by  unjust  suspicions  ;  and  that,  consequently,  although  she 
was  happy,  he  was  still  wandering  in  cold  and  darkness,  be- 
tween time  and  eternity.  She  had,  however,  long  known  that 
one  of  their  descendants  was  destined  to  effect  this  reconciliation 
for  them,  and  they  were  rejoiced  to  find  the  time  for  it  had  at 
length  arrived.    She  then  gave  the  duke  eight  days  to  consider 


2C4 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


if  he  were  willing  to  perform  this  good  office,  and  disappeared; 
whereupon  he  consulted  a  clergyman,  in  whom  he  had  great 
confidence,  who,  after  finding  the  ghost's  communication  veri- 
fied, by  a  reference  to  the  annals  of  the  family,  advised  him  to 
comply  with  her  request. 

As  the  duke  had  yet  some  difficulty  in  believing  it  was  really 
a  ghost  he  had  seen,  he  took  care  to  have  his  door  well  watched ; 
she,  however,  entered  at  the  appointed  time,  unseen  by  the 
attendants,  and,  having  received  the  duke's  promise,  she  told 
him  she  would  return  with  her  husband  on  the  following  night ; 
for  that,  though  she  could  come  by  day,  he  could  not ;  that  then, 
having  heard  the  circumstances,  the  duke  must  arbitrate  be- 
tween them,  and  then  unite  their  hands,  and  bless  them.  The 
door  was  still  watched,  but  nevertheless  the  apparitions  both 
came,  the  Duke  Casimer  in  full  royal  costume,  but  of  a  livid 
paleness  ;  and  when  the  wife  had  told  her  story,  he  told  his. 
Duke  Christian  decided  for  the  lady,  in  which  judgment  Duke 
Casimer  fully  acquiesced.  Christian  then  took  the  ice-cold  hand 
of  Casimer  and  laid  it  in  that  of  his  wife,  which  felt  of  a  natu- 
ral heat.  They  then  prayed  and  sang  together,  and  the  appa- 
ritions disappeared,  having  foretold  that  Duke  Christian  would 
ere  long  be  with  them.  The  family  records  showed  that  these 
people  had  lived  about  one  hundred  years  before  Duke  Chris- 
tian's time,  who  himself  died  in  1707,  two  years  after  these 
visits  of  his  ancestors.  He  desired  to  be  buried  in  quick-lime 
—  it  is  supposed  from  an  idea  that  it  might  prevent  his  ghost 
walking  the  earth. 

The  costume  in  which  they  appeared  was  precisely  that  they 
had  worn  when  alive,  as  was  ascertained  by  a  reference  to  their 
portraits. 

The  expression  that  her  husband  was  wandering  in  cold  and 
darkness,  between  time  and  eternity,  is  here  very  worthy  of 
observation,  as  are  the  circumstances  that  his  hand  was  cold, 
while  hers  was  warm  ;  and  also,  the  greater  privilege  she 
seemed  to  enjoy.  The  hands  of  the  unhappy  spirits  appear,  I 
think,  invariably  to  communicate  a  sensation  of  cold. 

I  have  heard  of  three  instances  of  persons  now  alive,  who 


TROUBLED  SPIRITS. 


265 


declare  that  they  hold  continual  intercourse  with  their  deceased 
partners.  One  of  these  is  a  naval  officer,  whom  the  anthor  of 
a  book  lately  published,  called  "  The  Unseen  World,"  appears 
to  be  acquainted  with.  The  second  is  a  professor  in  a  college 
in  America,  a  man  of  eminence  and  learning,  and  full  of  activity 
and  energy  —  yet  he  assured  a  friend  of  mine  that  he  receives 
constant  visits  from  his  departed  wife,  which  afford  him  great 
satisfaction.  The  third  example  is  a  lady  in  this  country.  She 
is  united  to  a  second  husband,  has  been  extremely  happy  in 
both  marriages,  and  declares  that  she  receives  frequent  visits 
from  her  first.  Oberlin,  the  good  pastor  of  Ban  de  la  Roche, 
asserted  the  same  thing  of  himself.  His  wife  came  to  him  fre- 
quently after  her  death  ;  was  seen  by  the  rest  of  his  household, 
as  well  as  himself ;  and  warned  him  beforehand  of  many  events 
that  occurred. 

Mrs.  Mathews  relates  in  the  memoirs  of  her  husband,  that  he 
was  one  night  in  bed  and  unable  to  sleep,  from  the  excitement 
that  continues  some  time  after  acting,  when,  hearing  a  rustling 
by  the  side  of  the  bed,  he  looked  out,  and  saw  his  first  wife, 
who  was  then  dead,  standing  by  the  bedside,  dressed  as  when 
alive.  She  smiled,  and  bent  forward  as  if  to  take  his  hand ; 
but  in  his  alarm  he  threw  himself  out  on  the  floor  to.  avoid  the 
contact,  and  was  found  by  the  landlord  in  a  fit.  On  the  same 
night,  and  at  the  same  hour,  the  present  Mrs.  Mathews,  who 
was  far  away  from  him,  received  a  similar  visit  from  her  prede- 
cessor, whom  she  had  known  when  alive.  She  was  quite  awake, 
and  in  her  terror  seized  the  bell-rope  to  summon  assistance, 
which  gave  way,  and  she  fell  with  it  in  her  hand  to  the  ground. 

Professor  Barthe,  who  visited  Oberlin  in  1824,  says,  that 
while  he  spoke  of  his  intercourse  with  the  spiritual  world  as 
familiarly  as  of  the  daily  visits  of  his  parishioners,  he  was  at  the 
same  time  perfectly  free  from  fanaticism,  and  eagerly  alive  to 
all  the  concerns  of  this  earthly  existence.  He  asserted,  what  I 
find  many  somnambules  and  deceased  persons  also  assert,  that 
everything  on  earth  is  but  a  copy,  of  which  the  antitype  is  to  be 
found  in  the  other. 

He  said  to  his  visiter,  that  he  might  as  well  attempt  to  per- 

12 


0 

26G  THE  NIGHT -  SIDE  OF  NATURE. 

suade  him  that  that  was  not  a  table  before  them,  as  that  he  did 
not  hold  communication  with  the  other  world.  "I  give  you 
credit  for  being  honest,  when  you  assure  me  that  you  never  saw 
anything  of  the  kind,"  said  he ;  "  give  me  the  same  credit  when 
I  assure  you  that  I  do." 

With  respect  to  the  faculty  of  ghost-seeing,  he  said,  it  de- 
pends on  several  circumstances,  external  and  internal.  People 
who  live  in  the  bustle  and  glare  of  the  world  seldom  see  them, 
while  those  who  live  in  still,  solitary,  thinly-inhabited  places, 
like  the  mountainous  districts  of  various  countries,  do.  So  if  I 
go  into  the  forest  by  night,  I  see  the  phosphoric  light  of  a  piece 
of  rotten  wood ;  but  if  I  go  by  day  I  can  not  see  it ;  yet  it  is 
still  there.  Again,  there  must  be  a  rapport.  A  tender  mother 
is  awakened  by  the  faintest  cry  of  her  infant,  while  the  maid 
slumbers  on  and  never  hears  it ;  and  if  I  thrust  a  needle  among 
a  parcel  of  wood-shavings,  and  hold  a  magnet  over  them,  the 
needle  is  stirred  while  the  shavings  are  quite  unmoved.  There 
must  be  a  particular  aptitude  ;  what  it  consists  in  I  do  not  know; 
for  of  my  people,  many  of  whom  are  ghost-seers,  some  are 
weak  and  sickly,  others  vigorous  and  strong.  Here  are  several 
pieces  of  flint :  I  can  see  no  difference  in  them ;  yet  some  have 
so  much  iron  in  them  that  they  easily  become  magnetic  ;  others 
have  little  or  none.  So  it  is  with  the  faculty  of  ghost-seeing. 
People  may  laugh  as  they  will,  but  the  thing  is  a  fact,  never- 
theless. 

The  visits  of  his  wife  continued  for  nine  years  after  her  death, 
and  then  ceased. 

At  length  she  sent  him  a  message,  through  another  deceased 
person,  to  say  that  she  was  now  elevated  to  a  higher  state,  and 
could  therefore  no  longer  revisit  the  earth. 

Never  was  there  a  purer  spirit,  nor  a  more  beloved  human 
being,  than  Oberlin.  When  first  he  was  appointed  to  the  cure 
of  Ban  de  la  Roche,  and  found  his  people  talking  so  familiarly 
of  the  reappearance  of  the  dead,  he  reproved  them  and  preached 
against  the  superstition  ;  nor  was  he  convinced,  till  after  the 
death  of  his  wife.  She  had,  however,  previously  received  a 
visit  from  her  deceased  sister,  the  wife  of  Professor  Oberlin,  of 


TROUBLED  SPIRITS.  267 

Strasburg,  who  had  warned  her  of  her  approaching  death,  for 
which  she  immediately  set  about  preparing,  making  extra 
clothing  for  her  children,  and  even  laying  in  provision  for  the 
funeral  feast.  She  then  took  leave  of  her  husband  and  family, 
and  went  quietly  to  bed.  On  the  following  morning  she  died ; 
and  Oberlin  never  heard  of  the  warning  she  had  received,  til] 
she  disclosed  it  to  him  in  her  spectral  visitations. 

In  narrating  the  following  story,  I  am  not  permitted  to  give 
the  names  of  the  place  or  parties,  nor  the  number  of  the  regi- 
ment, with  all  of  which,  however,  I  am  acquainted.  The  ac- 
count was  taken  down  by  one  of  the  officers,  with  whose  family 
I  am  also  acquainted  ;  and  the  circumstance  occurred  within 
the  last  ten  years. 

"  About  the  month  of  August,"  says  Captain  E  ,  "  my  at- 

tention^vas  requested  by  the  schoolmaster-sergeant,  a  man  of 
considerable  worth,  and  highly  esteemed  by  the  whole  corps, 
to  an  event  which  had  occurred  in  the  garrison  hospital.  Hav- 
ing heard  his  recital,  which,  from  the  serious  earnestness  with 
which  he  made  it,  challenged  attention,  I  resolved  to  investigate 
the  matter;  and,  having  communicated  the  circumstances  to  a 
friend,  we  both  repaired  to  the  hospital  for  the  purpose  of  in- 
quiry. 

"There  were  two  patients  to  be  examined  —  both  men  of 
good  character,  and  neither  of  them  suffering  from  any  disorder 
affecting  the  brain ;  the  one  was  under  treatment  for  consump- 
tive symptoms,  and  the  other  for  an  ulcerated  leg :  and  they 
were  both  in  the  prime  of  life. 

"  Having  received  a  confirmation  of  the  schoolmaster's  state- 
ment from  the  hospital-sergeant,  also  a  very  respectable  and 
trustworthy  man,  I  sent  for  the  patient  principally  concerned, 
and  desired  him  to  state  what  he  had  seen  and  heard,  warning 
him,  at  the  same  time,  that  it  was  my  intention  to  take  down 
his  deposition,  and  that  it  behooved  him  to  be  very  careful,  as 
possibly  serious  steps  might  be  taken  for  the  purpose  of  discov- 
ering whether  an  imposition  had  been  practised  in  the  wards 
of  the  hospital  —  a  crime  for  which,  he  was  well  aware,  a  very 
severe  penalty  would  be  inflicted.    He  then  proceeded  to  re- 


2G8 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


late  the  circumstances,  which  I  took  down  in  the  presence  of 
Mr.  B  and  the  hospital-sergeant,  as  follows  : — 

"  '  It  was  last  Tuesday  night,  somewhere  between  eleven  and 
twelve,  when  all  of  us  were  in  bed,  and  all  lights  out  except  the 
rush-light  that  was  allowed  for  the  man  with  the  fever,  when  I 
was  awoke  by  feeling  a  weight  upon  my  feet,  and  at  the  same 

moment,  as  I  was  drawing  up  my  legs,  Private  W  ,  who 

lies  in  the  cot  opposite  mine,  called  out,  "  I  say,  Q  ,  there 's 

somebody  sitting  upon  your  legs!"  —  and  as  I  looked  to  the 
bottom  of  my  bed,  I  saw  some  one  get  up  from  it,  and  then 
come  round  and  stand  over  me,  in  the  passage  between  my  cot 
and  the  next.-  I  felt  somewhat  alarmed,  for  the  last  few  nights 
the  ward  had  been  disturbed  by  sounds  as  of  a  heavy  foot  walk- 
ing up  and  down  ;  and  as  nobody  could  be  seen,  it  was  begin- 
ning to  be  supposed  among  us  that  it  was  haunted,  and  flncying 
this  that  came  up  to  my  bed's  head  might  be  the  ghost,  I  called 
out,  "  Who  are  you,  and  what  do  you  want  V 

"  1  The  figure  then,  leaning  with  one  hand  on  the  wall,  over 
my  head,  and  stooping  down,  said,  in  my  ear,  "  I  am  Mrs. 

M  ;"  and  I  could  then  distinguish  that  she  was  dressed  in 

a  flannel  gown,  edged  with  black  riband,  exactly  similar  to  a 
set  of  grave-clothes  in  which  I  had  assisted  to  clothe  her  corpse, 
when  her  death  took  place  a  year  previously. 

"  '  The  voice,  however,  was  not  like  Mrs.  M  *&,  nor  like 

anybody  else's,  yet  it  was  very  distinct,  and  seemed  somehow 
to  sing  through  my  head.  I  could  see  nothing  of  a  face  beyond 
a  darkish  color  about  the  head,  and  it  appeared  to  me  that  I 
could  see  through  her  body  against  the  window-glasses. 

"'Although  I  felt  very  uncomfortable,  I  asked  her  what  she 

wanted.    She  replied,  "  I  am  Mrs.  M  ,  and  I  wish  you  to 

write  to  him  that  was  my  husband,  and  tell  him  " 

*  ■  I  am  not,  sir,'  said  Corporal  Q  ,  '  at  liberty  to  mention 

to  anybody  what  she  told  me,  except  to  her  husband.  He  is  at 
the  depot  in  Ireland,  and  I  have  written  and  told  him.  She 
made  me  promise  not  to  tell  any  one  else.  After  I  had  prom- 
ised secrecy,  she  told  me  something  of  a  matter  that  convinced 
me  I  was  talking  to  a  spirit,  for  it  related  to  what  only  I  and 


TROUBLED  SPIRITS. 


269 


Mrs.  M   knew,  and  no  one  living  could  know  anything 

whatever  of  the  matter ;  and  if  I  was  now  speaking  my  last 

words  on  earth,  I  say  solemnly  that  it  was  Mrs.  M  's  spirit 

that  spoke  to  me  then,  and  no  one  else.  After  promising  that 
if  I  complied  with  her  request,  she  would  not  trouble  me  or  the 
ward  again,  she  went  from  my  bed  toward  the  fireplace,  and 
with  her  hands  she  kept  feeling  about  the  wall  over  the  mantel- 
piece. After  a  while,  she  came  toward  me  again ;  and  while 
my  eyes  were  upon  her,  she  somehow  disappeared  from  my 
sight  altogether,  and  I  was  left  alone. 

"  '  It  was  then  that  I  felt  faint-like,  and  a  cold  sweat  broke 
out  over  me ;  but  I  did  not  faint,  and  after  a  time  I  got  better, 
and  gradually  I  went  off  to  sleep. 

"  '  The  men  in  the  ward  said,  next  day,  that  Mrs.  M  had 

come  to  speak  to  me  about  purgatory,  because  she  had  been  a 
.  Roman  catholic,  and  we  "had  often  had  arguments  on  religion  : 
but  what  she  told  me  had  no  reference  to  such  subjects,  but  to 
a  matter  only  she  and  I  knew  of.' 

"  After  closely  cross-questioning  Corporal  Q  ,  and  en- 
deavoring without  success  to  reason  him  out  of  his  belief  in  the 
ghostly  character  of  his  visiter,  I  read  over  to  him  what  I  had 
written,  and  then,  dismissing  him,  sent  for  the  other  patient. 

"  After  cautioning  him,  as  I  had  done  the  first,  I  proceeded 
to  take  down  his  statement,  which  was  made  with  every  appear- 
ance of  good  faith  and  sincerity  : — 

"  '  I  was  lying  awake,'  said  he,  '  last  Tuesday  night,  when  I 

saw  some  one  sitting  on  Corporal  Q,  's  bed.    There  was  so 

little  light  in  the  ward,  that  I  could  not  make  out  who  it  was, 
and  the  figure  looked  so  strange  that  I  got  alarmed,  and  felt 

quite  sick.    I  called  out  to  Corporal  Q,          that  there  was 

somebody  sitting  upon  his  bed,  and  then  the  figure  got  up ;  and 
j  as  I  did  not  know  but  it  might  be  coming  to  me,  I  got  so  much 
alarmed,  that  being  but  weakly'  (this  was  the  consumptive  man), 
1 1  fell  back,  and  I  believe  I  fainted  away.  When  I  got  round 
again,  I  saw  the  figure  standing  and  apparently  talking  to  the 
'  corporal,  placing  one  hand  against  the  wall  and  stooping  down. 
I  could  not,  however,  hear  any  voice  j  and  being  still  much 


270 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


alarmed,  I  put  my  head  under  the  clothes  for  a  considerable 
time.    When  I  looked  up  again  I  could  only  see  Corporal 

Q,  ,  sitting  up  in  bed  alone,  and  he  said  he  had  seen  a  ghost ; 

and  I  told  him  I  had  also  seen  it.  After  a  time  he  got  up  and 
gave  me  a  drink  of  water,  for  I  was  very  faint.  Some  of  the 
other  patients  being  disturbed  by  our  talking,  they  bade  us  be 
quiet,  and  after  some  time  I  got  to  sleep.  The  ward  has  not 
been  disturbed  since/ 

"  The  man  was  then  cross-questioned  ;  but  his  testimony  re- 
maining quite  unshaken,  he  was  dismissed,  and  the  hospital- 
sergeant  was  interrogated  with  regard  to  the  possibility  of  a 
trick  having  been  practised.  He  asserted,  however,  that  this 
was  impossible  ;  and,  certainly,  from  my  own  knowledge  of  the 
hospital  regulations,  and  the  habits  of  the  patients,  1  should  say 
that  a  practical  joke  of  this  nature  was  too  serious  a  thing  to 
have  been  attempted  by  anybody,  especially  as  there  were  pa- 
tients in  the  ward  very  ill  at  the  time,  and  one  very  near  his 
end.  The  punishment  would  have  been  extremely  severe,  and 
discovery  almost  certain,  since  everybody  would  have  been 
adverse  to  the  delinquent. 

"  The  investigation  that  ensued  was  a  very  brief  one,  it  being 
found  that  there  was  nothing  more  to  be  elicited ;  and  the  affair 
terminated  with  the  supposition  that  the  two  men  had  been 
dreaming.  Nevertheless,  six  months  afterward,  on  being  in- 
terrogated, their  evidence  and  their  conviction  were  as  clear  as 
at  first,  and  they  declared  themselves  ready  at  any  time  to  repeat 
their  statement  upon  oath." 

Supposing  this  case  to  be  as  the  men  believed  it,  there  are 
several  things  worthy  of  observation.  In  the  first  place,  the 
ghost  is  guilty  of  that  inconsistency  so  offensive  to  Francis 
Grose  and  many  others.  Instead  of  telling  her  secret  to  her 
husband,  she  commissions  the  corporal  to  tell  it  him,  and  it  is 
not  till  a  year  after  her  departure  from  this  life  that  she  does 
even  that ;  and  she  is  heard  in  the  ward  two  or  three  nights 
before  she  is  visible.  We  are  therefore  constrained  to  suppose 
that,  like  Mrs.  Bretton,  she  could  not  communicate  with  her 
husband,  and  that,  till  that  Tuesday  night,  the  necessary  condi- 


TROUBLED  SPIRITS. 


271 


tions  for  attaining  her  object,  as  regarded  the  corporal,  were 
wanting.  It  is  also  remarkable  that,  although  the  latter  heard 
her  speak  distinctly,  and  spoke  to  her,  the  other  man  heard  no 
voice,  which  renders  it  probable  that  she  had  at  length  been 
able  to  produce  that  impression  upon  him  which  a  magnetizer 
does  on  his  somnambule,  enabling  each  to  understand  the  other 
by  a  transference  of  thought,  which  was  undistinguishable  to 
the  corporal  from  speech,  as  it  is  frequently  to  the  somnambule. 
The  imitating  the  actions  of  life  by  leaning  against  the  wall  and 
feeling  about  the  mantel-piece,  are  very  uulike  what  a  person 
would  have  done  who  was  endeavoring  to  impose  on  the  man ; 
and  equally  unlike  what  they  would  have  reported,  had  the 
thing  been  an  invention  of  their  own. 

Among  the  established  jests  on  the  subject  of  ghosts,  their 
sudden  vanishing  is  a  very  fruitful  one ;  but,  I  think,  if  we  ex- 
amine this  question,  we  shall  find  that  there  is  nothing  comical 
in  the  matter  except  the  ignorance  or  want  of  reflection  of  the 
jesters. 

In  the  first  place,  as  I  have  before  observed,  a  spirit  must  be 
where  its  thoughts  and  affections  are,  for  they  are  itself ;  our 
spirits  are  where  our  thoughts  and  affections  are,  although  our 
solid  bodies  remain  stationary  :  and  no  one  will  suppose  that 
walls  or  doors,  or  material  obstacles  of  any  kind,  could  exclude 
a  spirit  any  more  than  they  can  exclude  our  thoughts. 

But,  then,  there  is  the  visible  body  of  the  spirit  —  what  is 
that,  and  how  does  it  retain  its  shape  ?  —  for  we  know  that  there 
is  a  law  (discovered  by  Dalton)  that  two  masses  of  gaseous  mat- 
ter can  not  remain  in  contact,  but  they  will  immediately  proceed 
to  diffuse  themselves  into  one  another ;  and  accordingly,  it  may 
be  advanced  that  a  gaseous  corporeity  in  the  atmosphere  is  an 
impossibility,  because  it  could  not  retain  its  form,  but  would 
inevitably  be  dissolved  away,  and  blend  with  the  surrounding 
air.  But  precisely  the  same  objection  might  be  made  by  a 
chemist  to  the  possibility  of  our  fleshly  bodies  retaining  their 
integrity  and  compactness :  for  the  human  body,  taken  as  a 
whole,  is  known  to  be  an  impossible  chemical  compound,  except 
for  the  vitality  which  upholds  it ;  and  no  sooner  is  life  with- 


272  THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


drawn  from  it,  than  it  crumbles  into  putrescence  ;  and  it  is 
undeniable  that  the  aeriform  body  would  be  an  impossible  me- 
chanical phenomenon,  but  for  the  vitality  which,  we  are  entitled 
to  suppose,  may  uphold  it.  But,  just  as  the  state  or  condition 
of  organization  protects  the  fleshly  body  from  the  natural  reac- 
tions which  would  destroy  it,  so  may  an  analogous  condition  of 
organization  protect  a  spiritual  ethereal  body  from  the  destruc- 
tive influence  of  the  mutual  interdiffusion  of  gases. 

Thus,  supposing  this  aeriform  body  to  be  a  permanent  ap- 
purtenance of  the  spirit,  we  see  how  it  may  subsist  and  retain 
its  integrity ;  and  it  would  be  as  reasonable  to  hope  to  exclude 
the  electric  fluid  by  walls  or  doors  as  to  exclude  by  them 
this  subtle,  fluent  form.  If,  on  the  contrary,  the  shape  be  only 
one  constructed  out  of  the  atmosphere  by  an  act  of  will,  the 
same  act  of  will,  which  is  a  vital  force,  will  preserve  it  entire, 
until,  the  will  being  withdrawn,  it  dissolves  away.  In  either 
case,  the  moment  the  will  or  thought  of  the  spirit  is  elsewhere, 
it  is  gone  —  it  has  vanished. 

For  those  who  prefer  the  other  hypothesis  —  namely,  that 
there  is  no  outstanding  shape  at  all,  but  that  the  will  of  the 
spirit,  acting  on  the  constructive  imagination  of  the  seer,  ena- 
bles him  to  conceive  the  form,  as  the  spirit  itself  conceives  of 
it — there  can  be  no  difficulty  in  understanding  that  the  becom- 
ing invisible  will  depend  merely  on  a  similar  act  of  will. 


HAUNTED  HOUSES 


273 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

HAUNTED  HOUSES. 

Everybody  has  heard  of  haunted  houses;  and  there  is  no 
country,  and  scarcely  any  place,  in  which  something  of  the  sort 
is  not  known  or  talked  of;  and  I  suppose  there  is  no  one  who, 
in  the  course  of  their  travels,  has  not  seen  very  respectable, 
good-looking  houses  shut  up  and  uninhabited,  because  they  had 
this  evil  reputation  assigned  to  them.  I  have  seen  several  such, 
for  my  own  part ;  and  it  is  remarkable  that  this  mala  fama 
does  not  always,  by  any  means,  attach  itself  to  buildings  one 
would  imagine  most  obnoxious  to  such  a  suspicion.  For  ex- 
ample, I  never  heard  of  a  ghost  being  seen  or  heard  in  Haddon 
hall,  the  most  ghostly  of  houses ;  nor  in  many  other  antique, 
mysterious-looking  buildings,  where  one  might  expect  them, 
while  sometimes  a  house  of  a  very  prosaic  aspect  remains  unin- 
habited, and  is  ultimately  allowed  to  fall  to  ruin,  for  no  other 
reason,  we  are  told,  than  that  nobody  can  live  in  it.  I  remem- 
ber, in  my  childhood,' such  a  house  in  Kent  —  I  think  it  was  on 
the  road  between  Maidstone  and  Tunbridge  —  which  had  this 
reputation.  There  was  nothing  dismal  about  it :  it  was  neither 
large  nor  old,  and  it  stood  on  the  borders  of  a  well-frequented 
road ;  yet  I  was  assured  it  had  stood  empty  for  years ;  and  as 
long  as  I  lived  in  that  part  of  the  country  it  never  had  an  inhab- 
itant, and  I  believe  was  finally  pulled  down  —  and  all  for  no 
other  reason  than  that  it  was  haunted,  and  nobody  could  live  in 
it.  I  have  frequently  heard  of  people,  while  travelling  on  the 
continent,  getting  into  houses  at  a  rent  so  low  as  to  surprise 
them,  and  I  have,  moreover,  frequently  heard  of  very  strange 
things  occurring  while  they  were  there.    I  remember,  for  in- 

.stance,  a  family  of  the  name  of  S  S  ,  who  obtained  a 

very  handsome  house  at  a  most  agreeably  cheap  rate,  some- 

12* 


274 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


where  on  the  coast  of  Italy  —  I  think  it  was  at  Mola  de  Gaeta. 

They  lived  very  comfortably  in  it  till  one  day,  while  Mrs.  S  ■ 

S  was  sitting  in  the  drawing-room,  which  opened  into  a 

balcony  overhanging  the  sea.  she  saw  a  lady  dressed  in  white 
pass  along  before  the  windows,  which  were  all  closed.  Con 
eluding  it  was  one  of  her  daughters,  who  had  been  accidentally 
shut  out,  she  arose  and  opened  the  window,  to  allow  her  to 
enter ;  but  on  looking  out,  to  her  amazement  there  was  nobody 
there,  although  there  was  no  possible  escape  from  the  balcony 
unless  by  jumping  into  the  sea !  On  mentioning  this  circum- 
stance to  somebody  in  the  neighborhood,  they  were  told  that 
"  that  was  the  reason  they  had  the  house  so  cheap  :  nobody 
liked  to  live  in  it." 

I  have  heard  of  several  houses,  even  in  populous  cities,  to 
which  some  strange  circumstance  of  this  sort  is  attached — some 
in  London  even,  and  some  in  this  city  and  neighborhood ;  and, 
what  is  more,  unaccountable  things  actually  do  happen  to  those 
who  inhabit  them.  Doors  are  strangely  opened  and  shut,  a 
rustling  of  silk,  and  sometimes  a  whispering,  and  frequently 
footsteps,  are  heard.  There  is  a  house  in  Ayrshire  to  which 
this  sort  of  thing  has  been  attached  for  years,  insomuch  that  it 
was  finally  abandoned  to  an  old  man  and  woman,  who  said  that 
they  were  so  used  to  it  that  they  did  not  mind  it.  A  distin- 
guished authoress  told  me  that  some  time  ago  she  passed  a 
night  at  the  house  of  an  acquaintance,  in  one  of  the  midland 
counties  of  England.  She  and  her  sister  occupied  the  same 
room,  and  in  the  night  they  heard  some  one  ascending  the  stairs. 
The  foot  came  distinctly  to  the  door,  then  turned  away,  ascended 
the  next  flight,  and  they  heard  it  overhead.  In  the  morning,  on 
being  asked  if  they  had  slept  well,  they  mentioned  this  circum- 
stance. "  That  is  what  everybody  hears  who  sleeps  in  that 
room,"  said  the  lady  of  the  house.  "  Many  a  time  I  have,  when 
sleeping  there,  drawn  up  the  night-bolt,  persuaded  that  the 
nurse  was  bringing  the  baby  to  me ;  but  there  was  nobody  to 
be  seen.  We  have  taken  every  pains  to  ascertain  what  it  is, 
but  in  vain  ;  and  are  now  so  used  to  it,  that  we  have  ceased  to 
care  about  the  matter." 


HAUNTED  HOUSES. 


275 


I  know  of  two  or  three  other  houses  in  this  city,  and  one  in 
the  neighborhood,  in  which  circumstances  of  this  nature  are 
transpiring,  or  have  transpired  very  lately;  but  people  hush 
them  up,  from  the  fear  of  being  laughed  at,  and  also  from  an 
apprehension  of  injuring  the  character  of  a  house ;  on  which 
account,  I  do  not  dwell  on  the  particulars.  But  there  was, 
some  time  since,  a  Jama  of  this  kind  attached  to  a  house  in  St. 

J  street,  some  of  the  details  of  which  became  very  public. 

It  had  stood  empty  a  long  time,  in  consequence  of  the  annoy- 
ances to  which  the  inhabitants  had  been  subjected.  There  was 
one  room,  particularly,  which  nobody  could  occupy  without 
disturbance.  On  one  occasion,  a  youth  who  had  been  abroad  a 
considerable  time,  either  in  the  army  or  navy,  was  put  there  to 
sleep  on  his  arrival,  since,  knowing  nothing  of  these  reports,  it 
was  hoped  his  rest  might  not  be  interrupted.  In  the  morning, 
however,  he  complained  of  the  dreadful  time  he  had  had,  with 
people  looking  in*at  him  between  the  curtains  of  his  bed  all 
night — avowing  his  resolution  to  terminate  his  visit  that  same 
day,  as  he  would  not  sleep  there  any  more.  After  this  period, 
the  house  stood  empty  again  for  a  considerable  time,  but  was 
at  length  taken  and  workmen  sent  in  to  repair  it.  One  day, 
when  the  men  were  away  at  dinner,  the  master  tradesman  took 
the  key  and  went  to  inspect  progress,  and,  having  examined 
the  lower  rooms,  he  was  ascending  the  stairs,  when  he  heard  a 
man's  foot  behind  him.  He  looked  round,  but  there  was  no- 
body there,  and  he  moved  on  again  ;  still  there  was  somebody 
following,  and  he  stopped  and  looked  over  the  rails ;  but  there 
was  no  one  to  be  seen.  So,  although  feeling  rather  queer,  he 
advanced  into  the  drawing-room,  where  a  fire  had  been  lighted  ; 
and,  wishing  to  combat  the  uncomfortable  sensation  that  was 
creeping  over  him,  he  took  hold  of  a  chair,  and  drawing  it  reso- 
lutely along  the  floor,  he  slammed  it  down  upon  the  hearth  with 
some  force  and  seated  himself  in  it ;  when,  to  his  amazement, 
the  action,  in  all  its  particulars  of  sound,  was  immediately  re- 
peated by  his  unseen  companion,  who  seemed  to  seat  himself 
beside  him  on  a  chair  as  invisible  as  himself.  Horror-struck, 
the  worthy  juilder  started  up  and  rushed  out  of  the  house. 

4 


276 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


There  is  a  house  in  S          street,  in  London,  which,  having 

stood  empty  a  good  while,  was  at  length  taken  by  Lord  B  . 

The  family  were  annoyed  by  several  unpleasant  occurrences, 
and  by  the  sound  of  footseps,  which  were  often  audible,  espe- 
cially in  Lady  13  's  bedroom  —  who,  though  she  could  not 

see  the  form,  was  occasionally  conscious  of  its  immediate 
proximity. 

Some  time  since,  a  gentleman  having  established  himself  in  a 
lodging  in  London,  felt,  the  first  night  he  slept  there,  that  the 
clothes  were  being  dragged  off  his  bed.  He  fancied  he  had 
done  it  himself  in  his  sleep,  and  pulled  them  on  again ; — but  it 
happens  repeatedly:  he  gets  out  of  bed  each  time- — can  find 
nobody,  no  string,  no  possible  explanation  —  nor  can  obtain 
any  from  the  people  of  the  house,  who  only  seem  distressed 
and  annoyed.  On^  mentioning  it  to  some  one  in  the  neighbor- 
hood, he  is  informed  that  the  same  thing  has  occurred  to  sev- 
eral preceding  occupants  of  the  lodging,  wltich,  of  course,  he 
left. 

The  circumstances  that  happened  at  New  House,  in  Hamp- 
shire-—  as  detailed  by  Mr.  Barham  in  the  third  volume  of  the 
"  Ingoldsby  Legends" — are  known  to  be  perfectly  authentic; 
as  are  the  following,  the  account  of  which  1  have  received  from 
a  highly  respectable  servant,  residing  in  a  family  with  whom  I 
am  well  acquainted  :  she  informs  me  that  she  was,  not  very 

long  since,  living  with  a  Colonel  and  Mrs.  W  ,  who,  being 

at  Carlisle,  engaged  a  furnished  house,  which  they  obtained  at 
an  exceedingly  cheap  rate,  because  nobody  liked  to  live  in  it. 
This  family,  however,  met  with  no  annoyance,  and  attached  no 
importance  to  the  rumor  which  had  kept  the  house  empty. 
There  were,  however,  two  rooms  in  it  wholly  unfurnished  ;  and 
as  the  house  was  large,  they  were  dispensed  with  till  the  recur- 
rence of  the  race  week,  when,  expecting  company,  these  two 
rooms  were  temporarily  fitted  up  for  the  use  of  the  nurses  and 
children.  There  were  heavy  Venetian  blinds  to  the  windows ; 
and,  in  the  middle  of  the  night,  the  person  who  related  the  cir- 
cumstance to  me,  was  awakened  by  the  distinct  sound  of  these 
blinds  being  pulled  up  and  down  with  violence,  perhaps  as 


HAUNTED  HOUSES. 


277 


many  as  twenty  times.  The  fire  had  fallen  low.  and  she  could 
not  see  whether  they  were  actually  moved  or  not,  but  lay  trem- 
bling in  indescribable  terror.  Presently  feet  were  heard  in 
the  room,  and  a  stamping  as  if  several  men  were  moving  about 
without  stockings.  While  lying  in  this  state  of  agony,  she  was 
comforted  by  hearing  the  voice  of  a  nurse,  who  slept  in  another 
bed  in  the  same  chamber,  exclaiming :  "  The  Lord  have  mercy 
upon  us  !"  This  second  woman  then  asked  the  first  if  she  had 
courage  to  get  out  of  bed  and  stir  up  the  fire,  so  that  they 
might  be  able  to  see  ;  which  by  a  great  effort  she  did,  the  chim- 
ney being  near  her  bed.  There  was,  however,  nothing  to  be 
discovered,  everything  being  precisely  as  when  they  went  to 
hed.  On  another  occasion,  when  they  were  sitting  in  the  even- 
ing at  work,  they  distinctly  heard  some  one  counting  money, 
and  the  chink  of  the  pieces  as  they  were  laid  down.  The 
sound  proceeded  from  the  inner  room  of  the  two,  but  there  was 
nobody  there.  This  family  left  the  htfuse,  and  though  a  large 
and  commodious  one,  she  understood  it  remained  unoccupied, 
as  before. 

A  respectable  citizen  of  Edinburgh,  not  long  ago,  went  to 
America  to  visit  his  son,  who  had  married  and  settled  there. 
The  morning  after  his  arrival,  he  declared  his  determination  to 
return  immediately  to  Philadelphia,  from  which  the  house  was 
at  a  considerable  distance  ;  and,  on  being  interrogated  as  to  the 
cause  of  this  sudden  departure,  he  said  that  in  the  previous 
night  he  had  heard  a  man  walking  about  his  room,  who  had 
approached  the  bed,  drawn  back  the  curtains,  and  bent  over 
him.  Thinking  it  was  somebody  who  had  concealed  himself 
there  with  ill  intentions,  he  had  struck  out  violently  at  the  figure, 
when,  to  his  horror,  his  arm  passed  unimpeded  through  it. 

Other  extraordinary  things  happened  in  that  house,  which 
had  the  reputation  of  being  haunted,  although  the  son  had  n^pt 
believed  it,  and  had  therefore  not  mentioned  the  report  to  the 
father.  One  day  the  children  said  they  had  been  running  after 
"such  a  queer  thing  in  the  cellar;  it  was  like  a  goat,  and  not 
like  a  goat ;  but  it  seemed  to  be  like  a  shadow." 

A  few  years  ago,  some  friends  of  mine  were  taking  a  house 


278 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


in  tli is  city,  when  the  servants  of  the  people  who  were  leaving 
advised  them  not  to  have  anything  to  do  with  it,  for  that  there 
was  a  ghost  in  it  that  screamed  dreadfully,  and  that  they  never 
could  keep  a  stitch  of  clothes  on  them  at  night — the  bed-cov- 
erings were  always  pulled  off.  My  friends  laughed  heartily 
and  took  the  house ;  but  the  cries  and  groans  all  over  it  were 
so  frequent,  that  they  at  length  got  quite  used  to  them.  It  is 
to  be  observed  that  the  house  was  a  flat,  or  floor,  shut  in  ;  so 
that  there  could  be  no  draughts  of  air  nor  access  for  tricks. 
Besides,  it  was  a  woman's  voice,  sometimes  close  to  their  ears, 
sometimes  in  a  closet,  sometimes  behind  their  beds — in  short, 
in  all  directions.    Everybody  heard  it  that  went  to  the  house. 

The  tenant  that  succeeded  them,  however,  has  never  been 
troubled  with  it. 

The  story  of  the  Brown  Lady  at  the  Marquis  of  T  's,  in 

Norfolk,  is  known  to  many.    The  Hon.  H.  W  told  me  that 

a  friend  of  his,  while  staging  there,  had  often  seen  her,  and  had 
one  day  inquired  of  his  host,  "  Who  was  the  lady  in  brown  that 
he  had  met  frequently  on  the  stairs  ?"  Two  gentlemen,  whose 
names  were  mentioned  to  me,  resolved  to  watch  for  her  and 
intercept  her.  They  at  length  saw  her  but  she  eluded  them 
by  turning  down  a  staircase,  and  when  they  looked  over  she 
had  disappeared.    Many  persons  have  seen  her. 

There  is  a  Scotch  family  of  distinction,  who,  I  am  told,  are 
accompanied  by  an  unseen  attendant,  whom  they  call  "  Spin- 
ning Jenny."  She  is  heard  spinning  in  their  house  in  the  coun- 
try, and  when  they  come  into  town  she  spins  here  ;  servants 
and  all  hear  the  sound  of  her  wheel.  I  believe  she  accompa- 
nies them  no  further  than  to  their  own  residences,  not  to  those 
of  other  people.  Jenny  is  supposed  to  be  a  former  housemaid 
of  the  family,  who  was  a  great  spinner,  and  they  are  so  accus- 
tomed to  her  presence  as  to  feel  it  no  annoyance. 

The  following  very  singular  circumstance  was  related  to  me 

by  the  daughter  of  the  celebrated-  Mrs.  S  :  Mrs.  S  and 

lrer  husband  were  travelling  into  Wales,  and  had  occasion  to 
slop  on  their  way,  some  days,  at  Oswestry.  There  they  estab- 
lished themselves  in  a  lodging,  to  reach  the  door  of  which  they 


HAUNTED  HOUSES. 


279 


had  to  go  down  a  sort  of  close,  or  passage.  The  only  inhabi- 
tants of  the  house  were  the  mistress,  a  very  handsome  woman, 

and  two  maids.    Mr.  and  Mrs.  S  ,  however,  very  soon  had 

occasion  to  complain  of  the  neglected  state  of  the  rooms,  which 
were  apparently  never  cleaned  or  dusted  ;  though,  strange  to 
say,  to  judge  by  their  own  ears,  the  servants  were  doing  noth- 
ing else  all  night,  their  sleep  being  constantly  disturbed  by  the 
noise  of  rubbing,  sweeping,  and  the  moving  of  furniture.  When 
they  complained  to  these  servants  of  the  noise  in  the  night,  and 
the  dirt  of  the  rooms,  they  answered  that  the  noise  was  not 
made  by  them,  and  that  it  was  impossible  for  them  to  do  their 
work,  exhausted  as  they  were  by  sitting  up  all  night  with  their 
mistress,  who  could  not  bear  to  be  alone  when  she  was  in  bed. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  S  afterward  discovered  that  she  had  her  room 

lighted  up  every  night ;  and  one  day,  as  they  were  returning 
from  a  walk,  and  she  happened  to  be  going  down  the  close  be- 
fore them,  they  heard  her  saying,  as  she  turned  her  head  sharp- 
ly from  side  to  side,  "  Are  you  there  again  ?  What,  the  devil ! 
Go  away,  I  tell  you  !"  &c,  &c.  On  applying  to  the  neighbors 
for  an  explanation  of  these  mysteries,  the  good  people  only 
*hook  their  heads,  and  gave  mysterious  answers.  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
S  afterward  learned  that  she  was  believed  to  have  mur- 
dered a  girl  who  formerly  lived  in  her  service. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  conduct  of  this  unhappy  woman  which 
may  not  be  perfectly  well  accounted  for,  by  the  supposition  of 

a  guilty  conscience  ;  but  the  noises  heard  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  S  

at  night,  are  curiously  in  accordance  with  a  variety  of  similar 
stories,  wherein  this  strange  visionary  repetition  of  the  trivial 
actions  of  daily  life,  or  of  some  particular  incident,  has  been 
observed.  The  affair  of  Lord  St.  Vincent's  was  of  this  nature  ; 
and  there  is  somewhere  extant,  an  account  of  the  ghost  of  Peter 
the  Great,  of  Russia,  having  appeared  to  Doctor  Doppelio, 
complaining  to  him  of  the  sufferings  he  endured  from  having 
to  act  over  again  his  former  cruelties  ;  a  circumstance  which 
exhibits  a  remarkable  coincidence  with  the  Glasgow  dream, 
mentioned  in  a  preceding  chapter.  We  must,  of  course,  attach 
a  symbolical  meaning  to  these  phenomena,  and  conclude  that 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


these  readings  are  somewhat  of  the  nature  of  our  dreams. 
Certainly,  there  would  need  no  stronger  motive  to  induce  us 
to  spend  the  period  allotted  to  us  on  earth,  in  those  pure  and 
innocent  pleasures  and  occupations,  which  never  weary  or  sick- 
en the  soul,  than  the  belief  that  such  a  future  awaits  us  ! 

A  family  in  one  of  the  English  counties,  was  a  few  years  ago 
terribly  troubled  by  an  unseen  inmate  who  chiefly  seemed  to 
inhabit  a  large  cellar,  into  which  there  was  no  entrance  except 
the  door  which  was  kept  locked.  Here  there  would  be  a  loud 
knocking — sometimes  a  voice  crying — heavy  feet  walking,  &c, 
&c.  At  first,  the  old  trustworthy  butler  would  summon  his 
accolytes,  and  descend,  armed  with  sword  and  blunderbuss; 
but  no  one  was  to  be  seen.  They  could  often  hear  the  feet  fol- 
lowing them  up  stairs  from  this  cellar ;  and  once,  when  the  fam- 
ily had  determined  to  watch,  they  found  themselves  accompa- 
nied up  stairs  not  only  by  the  sound  of  the  feet,  but  by  a  visible 
shadowy  companion !  They  rushed  up,  flew  to  their  chamber, 
and  shut  the  door,  when  instantly  they  felt  and  saw  the  handle 
turned  in  their  hand  by  a  hand  outside.  Windows  and  doors 
were  opened  in  spite  of  locks  and  keys ;  but  notwithstanding 
the  most  persevering  investigations,  the  only  clew  to  the  mystery 
was  the  appearance  of  that  spectral  figure. 

The  knockings  and  sounds  of  people  at  work,  asserted  to  be 
heard  in  mines,  is  a  fact  maintained  by  many  very  sensible  men, 
overseers,  and  superintendents,  &c,  as  well  as  by  the  workmen 
themselves;  and  there  is  a  strong  persuasion,  I  know,  among 
the  miners  of  Cornwall,  and  those  of  Mendip,  that  these  vision- 
ary workmen  are  sometimes  heard  among  them  ;  on  which  oc- 
casions the  horses  evince  their  apprehensions  by  trembling  and 
sweating ;  but  as  I  have  no  means  of  verifying  these  reports,  I 
do  not  dwell  upon  them  further. 

When  the  mother  of  George  Canning,  then  Mrs.  Hunn,  was 
an  actress  in  the  provinces,  she  went,  among  other  places,  bo 
Plymouth,  having  previously  requested  her  friend,  Mr.  Bernard, 
of  the  theatre,  to  procure  her  a  lodging.  On  her  arrival  Mr. 
B.  told  her  that  if  she  was  not  afraid  of  a  ghost,  she  might  have 
a  comfortable  residence  at  a  very  low  rate,  "  For  there  is,"  said 


HAUNTED  HOUSES. 


281 


he,  "  a  house  belonging  to  our  carpenter,  that  is  reported  to  be 
haunted,  and  nobody  will  live  in  it.  If  you  like  to  have  it,  you 
may,  and  for  nothing,  I  believe,  for  he  is  so  anxious  to  get  a 
tenant ;  only  you  must  not  let  it  be  known  that  you  do  not  pay 
rent  for  it." 

Mrs.  Hunn,  alluding  to  the  theatrical  apparitions,  said  it  would 
not  be  the  first  time  she  had  had  to  do  with  a  ghost,  and  that 
she  was  very  willing  to  encounter  this  one  ;  so  she  had  her  lug- 
gage taken  to  the  house  in  question,  and  the  bed  prepared.  At 
her  usual  hour,  she  sent  her  maid  and  her  children  to  bed,  and, 
curious  to  see  if  there  was  any  foundation  for  the  rumor  she 
had  heard,  she  seated  herself,  with  a  couple  of  candles  and  a 
book,  to  watch  the  event.  Beneath  the  room  she  occupied  was 
the  carpenter's  workshop,  which  had  two  doors.  The  one  which 
opened  into  the  street  was  barred  and  bolted  within  ;  the  other, 
a  smaller  one,  opening  into  the  passage,  was  only  on  the  latch  ; 
and  the  house  was,  of  course,  closed  for  the  night.  She  had 
read  something  more  than  half  an  hour,  when  she  perceived  a 
noise  issuing  from  this  lower  apartment,  which  sounded  very 
much  like  the  sawing  of  wood.  Presently  other  such  noises  as 
usually  proceed  from  a  carpenter's  workshop  were  added,  till 
by-and-by,  there  was  a  regular  concert  of  knocking  and  ham 
mering,  and  sawing  and  planing,  &c. ;  the  whole  sounding  like 
half  a  dozen  busy  men  in  full  employment.  Being  a  woman 
of  considerable  courage,  Mrs.  Hunn  resolved,  if  possible,  to 
penetrate  the  mystery  ;  so  taking  off  her  shoes,  that  her  ap- 
proach might  not  be  heard,  with  her  candle  in  her  hand,  she 
very  softly  opened  her  door  and  descended  the  stairs,  the  noise 
continuing  as  loud  as  ever,  and  evidently  proceeding  from  the 
workshop,  till  she  opened  the  door,  when  instantly  all  was  silent 
—  all  was  still  —  not  a  mouse  was  stirring;  and  the  tools  and 
the  wood,  and  everything  else,  lay  as  they  had  been  left  by  the 
workmen  when  they  went  away.  Having  examined  every  part 
of  the  place,  and  satisfied  herself  that  there  was  nobody  there, 
and  that  nobody  could  get  into  it,  Mrs.  Hunn  ascended  to  her 
room  again,  beginning  almost  to  doubt  her  own  senses,  and 
question  with  herself  whether  she  had  really  heard  the  noise  or 


282 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


not,  when  it  recommenced  and  continued,  without  intermission, 
for  about  half  an  hour.  She  however  went  to  bed,  and  the  next 
day  told  nobody  what  had  occurred,  having  determined  to  watch 
another  night  before  mentioning  the  affair  to  any  one.  As, 
however,  this  strange  scene  was  acted  over  again,  without  her 
being  able  to  discover  the  cause  of  it,  she  now  mentioned  the 
circumstance  to  the  owner  of  the  house  and  to  her  friend  Ber- 
nard ;  and  the  former,  who  would  not  believe  it,  agreed  to 
watch  with  her,  which  he  did.  The  noise  began  as  before,  and 
he  was  so  horror-struck  that,  instead  of  entering  the  workshop 
as  she  wished  him  to  do,  he  rushed  into  the  street.  Mrs.  Hunn 
continued  to  inhabit  the  house  the  whole  summer;  and,  when 
referring  afterward  to  the  adventure,  she  observed  that  use  was 
second  nature,  and  that  she  was  sure  if  any  night  these  ghostly 
carpenters  had  not  pursued  their  visionary  labors,  she  should 
have  been  quite  frightened,  lest  they  should  pay  her  a  visit  up- 
stairs. 

From  many  recorded  cases,  I  find  the  vulgar  belief,  that  bu- 
ried money  is  frequently  the  cause  of  these  disturbances,  is 
strongly  borne  out  by  facts.  This  certainly  does  seem  to  us 
very  strange,  and  can  only  be  explained  by  the  hypothesis  sug- 
gested, that  the  soul  awakes  in  the  other  world  in  exactly  the 
same  state  in  which  it  quitted  this. 

In  the  abovementioned  instances,  of  what  are  called  haunted 
houses,  there  is  generally  nothing  seen ;  but  those  are  equally 
abundant  where  the  ghostly  visiter  is  visible. 

Two  young  ladies  were  passing  the  night  in  a  house  in  the 
north,  when  the  youngest,  then  a  child,  awoke  and  saw  an  old 
man,  in  a  Kilmarnock  nightcap,  walking  about  their  bedroom. 
She  said,  when  telling  the  story  in  after-life,  that  she  was  not 
the  least  frightened  —  she  was  only  surprised  !  but  she  found 
that  her  sister,  who  was  several  years  older  than  herself,  was  in 
a  state  of  great  terror.  He  continued  some  time  moving  about) 
and  at  last  went  to  a  chest  of  drawers,  where  there  lay  a  parcel 
of  buttons,  belonging  to  a  travelling  tailor  who  had  been  at  work 
in  the  house.  Whether  the  old  man  threw  them  down  or  not, 
she  could  not  say ;  but,  just  then,  they  all  fell  rattling  off  the 


HAUNTED  HOUSES. 


283 


drawers  to  the  floor,  whereupon  he  disappeared.  The  next 
morning,  when  they  mentioned  the  circumstance,  she  observed 
that  the  family 'looked  at  each  other  in  a  significant  manner; 
but  it  was  not  till  she  was  older  she  learned  that  the  house  was 
said  to  be  haunted  by  this  old  man.  "  It  never  occurred  to  me," 
she  said,  "  that  it  was  a  ghost.  Who  could  have  thought  of  a 
ghost  in  a  Kilmarnock  nightcap  !" 

At  the  Leipsic  fair,  lodgings  are  often  very  scarce,  and  on 
one  occasion  a  stranger,  who  had  arrived  late  in  the  evening, 
had  some  difficulty  in  finding  a  bed.  At  length  he  found  a  va- 
cant chamber  in  the  house  of  a  citizen.  It  was  one  they  made 
no  use  of,  but  they  said  he  was  welcome  to  it ;  and,  weary  and 
sleepy,  he  gladly  accepted  the  offer.  Fatigued  as  he  was,  how- 
ever, he  was  disturbed  by  some  unaccountable  noises,  of  which 
he  complained  to  his  hosts  in  the  morning.  They  pacified  him 
by  some  excuses ;  but  the  next  night,  not  long  after  he  had 
gone  to  bed,  he  came  down  stairs  in  great  haste,  with  his  port- 
manteau on  his  shoulder,  declaring  he  would  not  stay  there  an- 
other hour  for  the  world ;  for  that  a  lady,  in  a  strange  old-fash- 
ioned dress,  had  come  into  the  room  with  a  dagger  in  her  hand, 
and  made  threatening  gestures  at  him.  He  accordingly  went 
away,  and  the  room  was  shut  up  again ;  but  some  time  after- 
ward, a  servant-girl  in  the  family  of  this  citizen,  being  taken  ill, 
they  were  obliged  to  put  her  into  that  room,  in  order  to  sepa- 
rate her  from  the  rest  of  the  family.  Here  she  recovered  her 
health  rapidly  ;  and  as  she  had  never  complained  of  any  annoy- 
ance, she  was  asked,  when  she  was  quite  well,  whether  anything 
particular  had  happened  while  she  inhabited  that  chamber. 
"  Oh,  yes,"  she  answered  ;  "  every  night  there  came  a  strange 
lady  into  the  room,  who  sat  herself  on  the  bed  and  stroked  me 
with  her  hand,  and  I  believe  it  is  to  her  I  owe  my  speedy  re- 
covery;  but  I  could  never  get  her  to  speak  to  me  —  she  only 
sighs  and  weeps." 

Not  very  long  since,  a  gentleman  set  out,  one  fine  midsum- 
mer's evening,  when  it  is  light  all  night  in  Scotland,  to  walk 
from  Montrose  to  Brechin.  As  he  approached  a  place  called 
Dunn,  he  observed  a  lady  walking  on  before,  which,  from  the 


284 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


lateness  of  the  hour,  somewhat  surprised  him.  Sometime  af- 
terward, he  was  found  by  the  early  laborers  lying  on  the 
ground,  near  the  churchyard,  in  a  state  of  insensibility.  All  he 
could  tell  them  was,  that  he  had  followed  this  lady  till  she  had 
tinned  her  head  and  looked  round  at  him,  when,  seized  with 
horror,  he  had  fainted.  "  Oh,"  said  they,  "  you  have  seen  the 
lady  of  Dunn."  What  is  the  legend  attached  to  this  lady  of 
Dunn,  I  do  not  know. 

Monsieur  De  S.  had  been  violently  in  love  with  Hippolyte 
Clairon,  the  celebrated  French  actress,  but  she  rejected  his 
suit,  in  so  peremptory  a  manner,  that  even  when  he  was  at  the 
point  of  death,  she  refused  his  earnest  entreaties,  that  she  would 
visit  him.  Indignant  at  her  cruelty,  he  declared  that  he  would 
haunt  her,  and  he  certainly  kept  his  word.  I  believe  she  never 
saw  his  ghost,  but  he  appears  to  have  been  always  near  her ; 
at  least,  on  several  occasions  when  other  people  doubted  the 
fact,  he  signalized  his  presence  at  her  bidding,  by  various 
sounds,  and  this,  wherever  she  happened  to  be  at  the  moment. 
Sometimes  it  was  a  cry,  at  others,  a  shot,  and  at  others,  a  clap- 
ping of  hands  or  music.  She  seems  to  have  been  slow  to  be- 
lieve in  the  extra-natural  character  of  these  noises ;  and  even 
when  she  was  ultimately  convinced,  to  have  been  divided  be- 
tween horror  on  the  one  hand,  and  diversion,  at  the  oddness  of 
the  circumstance,  on  the  other.  The  sounds  were  heard  by 
everybody  in  her  vicinity ;  and  I  am  informed  by  Mr.  Charles 
Kirkpatrick  Sharpe,  that  the  margrave  of  Anspach,  who  was 
subsequently  her  lover,  and  Mr.  Keppel  Craven,  were  perfect- 
ly well  acquainted  with  the  circumstances  of  this  haunting,  and 
entertained  no  doubt  of  the  facts  above  alluded  to. 

The  ghost  known  by  the  designation  of  "  the  White  Lady," 
which  is  frequently  seen  in  different  castles  or  palaces  belonging 
to  the  royal  family  of  Prussia,  has  been  mentioned  in  another 
publication,  I  think.  She  was  long  supposed  to  be  a  Countess 
Agnes,  of  Orlamunde ;  but  a  picture  of  a  princess  called  Ber- 
tha, or  Perchta  von  Rosenberg,  discovered  some  time  since, 
was  thought  so  exceedingly  to  resemble  the  apparition,  that  it 
is  now  a  disputed  point  which  of  the  two  ladies  it  is,  or  whether 


HAUNTED  HOUSES. 


285 


it  is  or  is  not  the  same  apparition  that  is  seen  at  different  places. 
Neither  of  these  ladies  appears  to  have  been  very  happy  in  their 
lives  :  but  the  opinion  of  its  being  the  Princess  Bertha,  who 
lived  in  the  fifteenth  century,  was  somewhat  countenanced  by 
the  circumstance,  that  at  a  period  when,  in  consequence  of  the 
war,  an  annual  benefit  which  she  had  bequeathed  to  the  poor 
was  neglected,  the  apparition  seemed  to  be  unusually  disturbed, 
and  was  seen  more  frequently.  She  is  often  observed  before 
a  death  ;  and  one  of  the  Fredericks  said,  shortly  before  his  de- 
cease, that  he  should  "  not  live  long,  for  he  had  met  the  White 
Lady."  She  wears  a  widow's  band  and  veil,  but  it  is  suffi- 
ciently transparent  to  show  her  features,  which  do  not  express 
happiness,  but  placidity.  She  has  only  been  twice  heard  to 
speak.  In  December,  1628,  she  appeared  in  the  palace  at 
Berlin,  and  was  heard  to  say,  "  Veni,  judica  vivos  et  mortuos  ! 
Judicium  mihi  adhuc  superest." — "Come,  judge  the  quick  and 
the  dead  !  I  wait  for  judgment."  On  the  other  occasion,  which 
is  more  recent,  one  of  the  princesses  at  the  castle  of  Neuhaus, 
in  Bohemia,  was  standing  before  a  mirror,  trying  on  a  new 
head-dress,  when,  on  asking  her  waiting-maid  what  the  hour 
was,  the  white  lady  suddenly  stepped  from  behind  a  screen  and 
said  :  "  Zehn  uhr  ist  es  ihr  liebden  !" — "  It  is  ten  o'clock,  your 
love!"  which  is  the  mode  in  which  the  sovereign  princes  ad- 
dress each  other,  instead  of  "  your  highness."  The  princess 
was  much  alarmed,  soon  fell  sick,  and  died  in  a  few  weeks. 
She  has  frequently  evinced  displeasure  at  the  exhibition  of 
impiety  or  vice ;  and  there  are  many  records  of  her  different 
appearances  to  be  found  in  the  works  of  Balbinus  and  of  Erasmus 
Francisci ;  and  in  a  publication  called  "  The  Iris,"  published 
in  Frankfort  in  1819,  the  .editor,  George  Doring,  who  is  said  to 
have  been  a  man  of  great  integrity,  gives  the  following  account 
of  one  of  her  later  appearances,  which  he  declares  he  received 
just  as  he  gives  it,  from  the  lips  of  his  own  mother,  ou  whose 
word  and  judgment  he  could  perfectly  rely  ;  and  shortly  before 
his  death,  an  inquiry  being  addressed  to  him  with  regard  to  the 
correctness  of  the  narration,  he  vouched  for  its  authenticity. 
It  seems  that  the  elder  sister  of  his  mother  was  companion* 


236 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


to  one  of  the  ladies  of  the  court,  and  that  the  younger  ones  were 
in  the  habit  of  visiting  her  frequently.  Two  of  these  (Doring's 
mother  and  another),  aged  fourteen  and  fifteen,  were  once 
spending  a  week  with  her,  when  she  being  out  and  they  alone 
with  their  needlework,  chattering  about  the  court  diversions, 
they  suddenly  heard  the  sound  of  a  stringed  instrument,  like  a 
harp,  which  seemed  to  proceed  from  behind  a  large  stove  that 
occupied  one  corner  of  the  room.  Half  in  fear  and  half  in  fun, 
one  of  the  girls  took  a  yard  measure  that  lay  beside  them,  and 
struck  the  spot,  whereupon  the  music  ceased,  but  the  stick  was 
wrested  from  her  hand.  She  became  alarmed ;  but  the  other, 
named  Christina,  laughed  and  said  she  must  have  fancied  it, 
adding  that  the  music  doubtless  proceeded  from  the  street, 
though  they  could  not  descry  any  musicians.  To  get  over  her 
fright,  of  which  she  was  half  ashamed,  the  former  now  ran  out 
of  the  room  to  visit  a  neighbor  for  a  few  minutes  j  but  when 
she  returned,  she  found  Christina  lying  on  the  floor  in  a  swoon, 
who,  on  being  revived  with  the  aid  of  the  attendants  who  had 
heard  a  scream,  related,  that  no  sooner  had  her  sister  left  her 
than  the  sound  was  repeated,  close  to  the  stove,  and  a  white 
figure  had  appeared  and  advanced  toward  her,  whereupon  she 
had  screamed  and  fainted. 

The  lady  who  owned  the  apartments  flattered  herself  that 
this  apparition  betokened  that  a  treasure  was  hidden  under  the 
stove,  and,  imposing  silence  on  the  girls,  she  sent  for  a  carpen- 
ter and  had  the  planks  lifted.  The  floor  was  found  to  be 
double,  and  below  was  a  vault,  from  which  issued  a  very  un- 
wholesome vapor,  but  no  treasure  was  found,  nor  anything  but 
a  quantity  of  quick-lime.  The  circumstance  being  now  made 
known  to  the  king,  he  expressed  no  surprise ;  he  said  that  the 
apparition  was  doubtless  that  of  a  countess  of  Orlamunde,  who 
had  been  buried  alive  in  that  vault.  She  was  the  mistress  of 
a  margrave  of  Brandenburg,  by  whom  she  had  two  sons. 
When  the  prince  became  a  widower,  she  expected  he  would 
marry  her ;  but  he  urged  as  an  objection  that  he  feared,  in  that 
case,  her  sons  might  hereafter  dispute  the  succession  with  the 
Jawful  heirs.    In  order  to  remove  this  obstacle  out  of  her  way, 


HAUNTED  HOUSES. 


287 


bhe  poisoned  the  children ;  and  the  margrave,  disgusted  and 
alarmed,  had  her  walled  up  in  that  vault  for  her  pains.  He 
added  that  she  was  usually  seen  every  seven  years,  and  was 
preceded  by  the  sound  of  a  harp,  on  which  instrument  she 
had  been  a  proficient ;  and  also  that  she  more  frequently  ap- 
peared to  children  than  to  adults,  —  as  if  the  love  she  had  de- 
nied her  own  offspring  in  life  was  now  her  torment,  and  that 
she  sought  a  reconciliation  with  childhood  in  general.  I  know 
from  the  best  authority  that  the  fact  of  these  appearances  is  not 
doubted  by  those  who  have  the  fullest  opportunities  of  inquiry 
and  investigation ;  and  I  remember  seeing  in  the  English  pa- 
pers, a  few  years  since,  a  paragraph  copied  from  the  foreign 
journals,  to  the  effect  that  the  White  Lady  had  been  seen  again, 
I  think  at  Berlin. 

The  following  very  curious  relation  I  have  received  from  the 
gentleman  to  whom  the  circumstance  occurred,  who  is  a  pro- 
fessional man  residing  in  London  :  — 

"  I  was  brought  up  by  a  grandfather  and  four  aunts,  all 
ghost-seers  and  believers  in  supernatural  appearances.  The 
former  had  been  a  sailor,  and  was  one  of  the  crew  that  sailed 
round  the  world  with  Lord  Anson.  I  remember,  when  I  was 
about  eight  years  old,  that  I  was  awakened  by  the  screams  of 
one  of  these  ladies,  with  whom  I  was  sleeping,  which  sum- 
moned all  the  family  about  her  to  inquire  the  cause  of  the  dis- 
turbance. She  said  that  she  had  '  seen  Nancy  by  the  side  of 
the.  bed,  and  that  she  was  slipping  into  it/  We  had  scarcely 
got  down  stairs  in  the  morning,  before  intelligence  arrived  that 
that  lady  had  died,  precisely  at  the  moment  my  aunt  said  she 
saw  her.  Nancy  was  her  brother's  wife.  Another  of  my 
aunts,  who  was  married  and  had  a  large  family,  foretold  my 
grandfather's  death,  at  a  time  that  we  had  no  reason  to  appre- 
hend it.  He,  also,  had  appeared  at  her  bedside  ;  he  was  then 
alive  and  well,  but  he  died  a  fortnight  afterward.  But  it  would 
be  tedious  were  I  to  enumerate  half  the  instances  I  could  recall 
of  a  similar  description ;  and  I  will  therefore  proceed  to  the 
relation  of  what  happened  to  myself. 

"  1  was,  some  few  years  since,  invited  to  pass  a  day  and 


283 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


night  at  the  house  of  a  friend  in  Hertfordshire,  with  whom  I 

was  intimately  acquainted.    His  name  was  B  ,  and  he  had 

formerly  been  in  business  as  a  saddler,  in  Oxford  street,  where 
he  realized  a  handsome  fortune,  and  had  now  retired  to  enjoy 
his  otium  cum  dignitate,  in  the  rural  and  beautiful  village  of 
Sarratt. 

"  It  was  a  gloomy  Sunday,  in  the  month  of  November,  when 
I  mounted  my  horse  for  the  journey,  and  there  was  so  much 
appearance  of  rain,  that  I  should  certainly  have  selected  some 
other  mode  of  conveyance,  had  I  not  been  desirous  of  leaving 

the  animal  in  Mr.  E  's  straw-yard  for  the  winter.  Before 

I  got  as  far  as  St.  John's  wood,  the  threatening  clouds  broke, 
and  by  the  time  I  reached  Watford  I  was  completely  soaked. 
However,  I  proceeded,  and  arrived  at  Sarratt  before  my  friend 
and  his  wife  had  returned  from  church.  The  moment  they  did 
so,  they  furnished  me  with  dry  clothes,  and  I  was  informed  that 

we  were  to  dine  at  the  house  of  Mr.  D  ,  a  very  agreeable 

neighbor.  I  felt  some  little  hesitation  about  presenting  myself 
in  such  a  costume,  for  I  was  decked  out  in  a  full  suit  of  Mr. 

B  's,  who  was  a  stout  man,  of  six  feet  in  height,  while  I  am 

rather  of  the  diminutive  order ;  but  my  objections  were  over- 
ruled ;  we  went,  and  my  appearance  added  not  a  little  to  the 
hilarity  of  the  party.  At  ten  o'clock  we  separated,  and  I  re- 
turned with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  B  to  their  house,  where  I  was 

shortly  afterward  conducted  to  a  very  comfortable  bed-room. 

"  Fatigued  with  my  day's  ride,  I  was  soon  in  bed,  and  soon 
asleep,  but  I  do  not  think  I  could  have  slept  long  before  I  was 
awakened  by  the  violent  barking  of  dogs.  I  found  that  the 
noise  had  disturbed  others  as  well  as  myself,  for  I  heard  Mr. 

B  ,  who  was  lodged  in  the  adjoining  room,  open  his  window 

and  call  to  them  to  be  quiet.  They  were  obedient  to  his  voice, 
and  as  soon  as  quietness  ensued  I  dropped  asleep  again ;  but  I 
was  again  awakened  by  an  extraordinary  pressure  upon  my 
feet. ;  that  I  was  perfectly  awake,  I  declare  ;  the  light  that  stood 
in  the  chimney-corner  shone  strongly  across  the  foot  of  the  bed, 
and  I  saw  the  figure  of  a  well-dressed  man  in  the  act  of  stoop- 
ing, and  supporting  himself  in  so  doing  by  the  bedclothes.  He 


HAUNTED  HOUSES. 


289 


had  on  a  blue  coat,  with  bright  gilt  buttons,  but  I  saw  no  head  ; 
the  curtains  at  the  foot  of  the  bed,  which  were  partly  looped 
back,  just  hung  so  as  to  conceal  that  part  of  his  person.  At 
first  I  thought  it  was  my  host,  and  as  I  had  dropped  my  clothes, 
as  is  my  habit,  on  the  floor  at  the  foot  of  the  bed,  I  supposed 
he  was  come  to  look  after  them,  which  rather  surprised  me : 
but,  just  as  I  had  raised  myself  upright  in  bed,  and  was  about 
to  inquire  into  the  occasion  of  his  visit,  the  figure  passed  on.  I 
then  recollected  that  I  had  locked  the  door;  and,  becoming 
somewhat  puzzled,  I  jumped  out  of  bed  ;  but  I  could  see  no- 
body ;  and  on  examining  the  room  I  found  no  means  of  ingress 
but  the  door  through  which  I  had  entered,  and  one  other ;  both 
of  which  were  locked  on  the  inside.  Amazed  and  puzzled  I 
got  into  bed  again,  and  sat  some  time  ruminating  on  the  extra- 
ordinary circumstance,  when  it  occurred  to  me  that  I  had  not 
looked  under  the  bed  ;  so  I  got  out  again,  fully  expecting  to  find 
my  visiter,  whoever  he  was,  there  ;  but  I  was  disappointed.  So, 
after  looking  at  my  watch,  and  ascertaining  that  it  was  ten  min- 
utes past  two,  I  stepped  into  bed  again,  hoping  now  to  get  some 
rest.  But,  alas  !  sleep  was  banished  for  that  night ;  and  after 
turning  from  side  to  side,  and  making  vain  endeavors  at  forget- 
fulness,  I  gave  up  the  point,  and  lay  till  the  clocks  struck  seven, 
perplexing  my  brain  with  the  question  of  who  my  midnight  vis- 
iter could  be,  and  also  how  he  had  got  in  and  how  he  had  got 
out  of  my  room.  About  eight  o'clock  I  met  my  host  and  his 
wife  at  the  breakfast-table,  when,  in  answer  to  their  hospitable 
inquiries  of  how  I  had  passed  the  night,  I  mentioned,  first,  that 
I  had  been  awaked  by  the  barking  of  some  dogs,  and  that  I  had 
heard  Mr.  B  open  his  window  and  call  to  them.  He  an- 
swered that  two  strange  dogs  had  got  into  the  yard  and  had 
disturbed  the  others.  I  then  mentioned  my  midnight  visiter, 
expecting  that  they  would  either  explain  the  circumstance,  or 
else  laugh  at  me  and  declare  I  must  have  dreamed  it.„  But,  to 
my  surprise,  my  story  was  listened  to  with  grave  attention,  and 
they  related  to  me  the  tradition  with  which  this  spectre,  for 
such  I  found  they  deemed  it  to  be,  was  supposed  to  be  con- 
nected.   This  was  to  the  effect,  that  many  years  ago  a  gentle- 

13 


090 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


man  so  attired  had  been  murdered  there,  under  some  frightful 
circumstances,  and  that  his  head  had  been  cut  off.  On  perceiv- 
ing that  I  was  very  unwilling  to  accept  this  explanation  of  the 
mystery,  for,  in  spite  of  my  family  peculiarity,  I  had  always 
been  an  entire  disbeliever  in  supernatural  appearances,  they 
begged  me  to  prolong  my  visit  for  a  day  or  two,  when  they 
would  introduce  me  to  the  rector  of  the  parish,  who  could  furnish 
me  with  such  evidence  with  regard  to  circumstances  of  a  simi- 
lar nature,  as  would  leave  no  doubt  on  my  mind  as  to  the  pos- 
sibility of  their  occurrence.  But  I  had  made  an  engagement  to 
dine  at  Watford,  on  my  way  back,  and  I  confess,  moreover,  that 
after  what  I  had  heard  I  did  not  feel  disposed  to  encounter  the 
chance  of  another  visit  from  the  mysterious  stranger ;  so  I 
declined  the  proffered  hospitality,  and  took  my  leave. 

"  Some  time  after  this,  I  happened  to  be  dining  at  C  

street,  in  company  with  some  ladies  resident  in  the  same  county, 
when,  chancing  to  allude  to  my  visit  to  Sarratt,  I  added,  that  I 
had  met  with  a  very  extraordinary  adventure  there,  which  I  had 
never  been  able  to  account  for,  when  one  of  these  ladies  imme- 
diately said  that  she  hoped  I  had  not  had  a  visit  from  the  head- 
less gentleman,  in  a  blue  coat  and  gilt  buttons,  who  was  said  to 
have  been  seen  by  many  people  in  that  house. 

"  Such  is  the  conclusion  of  this  marvellous  tale  as  regards 
myself ;  and  I  can  only  assure  you  that  I  have  related  facts  as 
they  occurred,  and  that  I  had  never  heard  a  word  about  this 

apparition  in  my  life,  till  Mr.  B  related  to  me  the  tradition 

above  alluded  to.  Still,  as  I  am  no  believer,  in  supernatural 
appearances,  I  am  constrained  to  suppose  that  the  whole  affair 
was  the  product  of  my  imagination. 

"  I  must  add,  that  Mr.  B   mentioned  some  strange  cir- 
cumstances connected  with  another  house  in  the  county,  inhab- 
ited by  a  Mr.  M  ,  which  wTere  corroborated  by  the  ladies 

above  alluded  to.  Both  parties  agreed  that,  from  the  unac- 
countable noises,  &c,  &c,  which  were  heard  there,  that  gentle- 
man had  the  greatest  difficulty  in  persuading  any  servants  to 
remain  with  him.  "  A  W  M  . 

"  C  street,  bth  September,  1846." 


HAUNTED  HOUSES. 


291 


This  is  one  of  those  curious  instances  of  determined  skepti- 
cism that  fully  justify  the  patriarch's  prediction. 

The  following  interesting  letter,  written  by  a  member  of  a 
very  distinguished  English  family,  will  furnish  its  own  explana- 
tion :  — 

"  As  you  express  a  wish  to  know  what  degree  of  credit  is  to 
be  attached  to  a  garbled  tale  which  has  been  sent  forth,  after  a 
lapse  of  between  thirty  and  forty  years,  as  an  1  accredited  ghost- 
story,'  I  will  state  the  facts  as  they  were  recalled  to  my  mind 

last  year  by  a  daughter  of  Sir  William  A.  C  ,  who  sent  the 

book  to  me,  requesting  me  to  tell  her  if  there  was  any  founda- 
tion for  the  story,  which  she  could  scarcely  believe,  since  she 
had  never  heard  my  mother  allude  to  it.  I  read  the  narrative 
with  surprise,  it  being  evidently  not  furnished  by  any  of  the 
family,  nor  indeed  by  any  one  who  was  with  us  at  the  time ! 
yet,  though  full  of  mistakes  in  names,  &c,  &c,  some  particulars 
come  so  near  the  truth  as  to  puzzle  me.  The  facts  are  as  fol- 
lows :  —  • 

"  Sir  James,  my  mother,  with  myself  and  my  brother  Charles, 
went  abroad  toward  the  end  of  the  year  1786.  After  trying 
several  different  places,  we  determined  to  settle  at  Lille,  where 
we  found  the  masters  particularly  good,  and  where  we  had 
also  letters  of  introduction  to  several  of  the  best  French 
families.  There  Sir  James  left  us,  and,  after  passing  a  few 
days  in  an  uncomfortable  lodging,  we  engaged  a  nice,  large 
family  house,  which  we  liked  very  much,  and  which  we  ob- 
tained at  a  very  low  rent,  even  for  that  part  of  the  world. 

"  About  three  weeks  after  we  were  established  in  our  new 
residence,  I  walked  one  day  with  my  mother  to  the  bankers, 
for  the  purpose  of  delivering  our  letter  of  credit  from  Sir  Rob- 
ert Herries,  and  drawing  some  money,  which,  being  paid  in 
heavy  five-franc  pieces,  we  found  we  could  not  carry,  and  there- 
fore requested  the  banker  to  send,  saying,  '  We  live  in  the 
Place  du  Lion  D'or.'  Whereupon  he  looked  surprised,  and 
observed  that  he  knew  of  no  house  there  fit  for  us,  '  except, 
indeed,'  he  added,  '  the  one  that  has  been  long  uninhabited,  on 
account  of  the  revenan    ;hat  walks  about  it.'   He  said  this  quite 


292 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


seriously,  and  in  a  natural  tone  of  voice,  in 'spite  of  which  we 
laughed,  and  were  quite  entertained  at  the  idea  of  a  ghost ;  hut 
at  the  same  time  we  begged  him  not  to  mention  the  thing  to  our 
servants,  lest  they  should  take  any  fancies  into  their  heads  ;  and 
my  mother  and  I  resolved  to  say  nothing  about  the  matter  to 
any  one.  '  I  suppose  it  is  the  ghost,'  said  my  mother,  laughing, 
*  that  wakes  us  so  often  by  walking  over  our  heads.'  We  had, 
in  fact,  been  awakened  several  nights  by  a  heavy  foot,  which 
we  supposed  to  be  that  of  one  of  the  men-servants,  of  whom  we 
had  three  English  and  four  French  ;  of  women-servants  we  had 
five  English,  and  all  the  rest  were  French.  The  English  ones, 
men  and  women,  every  one  of  them,  returned  ultimately  to 
England  with  us. 

m  A  night  or  two  afterward,  being  again  awakened  by  the 
step,  my  mother  asked  Creswell,  '  Who  slept  in  the  room  above 
usV  'No  one,  my  lady,'  she  replied  —  'it  is  a  large,  empty 
garret.' 

"  About  a  week  or  ten  days  after  this,  Creswell  came  to  my 
mother,  one  morning,  and  told  her  that  all  the  French  servants 
talked  of  going  away,  because  there  was  a  revenant  in  the 
house ;  adding  that  there  seemed  to  be  a  strange  story  attached 
to  the  place,  which  was  said,  together  with  some  other  prop- 
erty, to  have  belonged  to  a  young  man,  whose  guardian,  who 
was  also  his  uncle,  had  treated  him  cruelly  and  confined  him 
in  an  iron  cage  ;  and  as  he  had  subsequently  disappeared,  it 
was  conjectured  he  had  been  murdered.  This  uncle,  after  in- 
heriting the  property,  had  suddenly  quitted  the  house  and  sold 
it  to  the  father  of  the  man  of  whom  we  had  hired  it.  Since 
that  period,  though  it  had  been  several  times  let,  nobody  had 
ever  stayed  in  it  above  a  week  or  two,  and  for  a  considerable 
time  past  it  had  had  no  tenant  at  all. 

"  '  And  do  you  really  believe  all  this  nonsense,  Creswell  V 
6aid  my  mother. 

"  '  Well,  I  don't  know,  my' lady,'  answered  she  ;  '  but  there's 
the  iron  cage  in  the  garret  over  your  bed-room,  where  you 
may  see  it,  if  you  please.' 

"  Of  course  we  rose  to  go  ;  and  as  just  at  that  moment  an  old 


HAUNTED  HOUSES. 


293 


officer,  with  his  Croix  de  St.  Louis,  called  on  us,  we  invited 
him  to  accompany  us  and  we  ascended  together.  We  found, 
as  Creswell  had  said,  a  large  empty  garret  with  bare  brick 
walls ;  and  in  the  further  corner  of  it  stood  an  iron  cage,  such 
as  wild  beasts  are  kept  in,  only  higher ;  it  was  about  four  feet 
square,  and  eight  in  height,  and  there  was  an  iron  ring  in  the 
wall  at  the  back,  to  which  was  attached  an  old  rusty  chain  with 
a  collar  fixed  to  the  end  of  it.  I  confess  it  made  my  blood 
creep  when  I  thought  of  the  possibility  of  any  human  being 
having  inhabited  it !  And  our  old  friend  expressed  as  much 
horror  as  ourselves,  assuring  us  that  it  must  certainly  have  been 
constructed  for  some  such  dreadful  purpose.  As,  however,  we 
were  no  believers  in  ghosts,  we  all  agreed  that  the  noises  must 
proceed  from  somebody  who  had  an  interest  in  keeping  the 
house  empty ;  and  since  it  was  very  disagreeable  to  imagine 
that  there  were  secret  means  of  entering  it  at  night,  we  re- 
solved, as  soon  as  possible,  to  look  out  for  another  residence, 
and  in  the  meantime  to  say  nothing  about  the  matter  to  any- 
body. About  ten  days  after  this  determination,  my  mother, 
observing  one  morning  that  Creswell,  when  she  came  to  dress 
her,  looked  exceedingly  pale  and  ill,  inquired  if  anything  was 
the  matter  with  her.  *  Indeed,  my  lady/  she  answered,  1  we 
have  been  frightened  to  death,  and  neither  I  nor  Mrs.  Marsh 
jan  sleep  again  in  the  room  we  are  now  in.' 

"  *  Well,'  returned  my  mother,  1  you  shall  both  come  and 
sleep  in  the  little  spare  room  next  us ;  but  what  has  alarmed 
you  V 

"  4  Some  one,  my  lady,  went  through  our  room  in  the  night ; 
we  both  saw  the  figure,  but  we  covered  our  heads  with  the 
bed-clothes,  and  lay  in  a  dreadful  fright  till  morning.' 

"  On  hearing  this,  I  could  not  help  laughing,  upon  which 
Creswell  burst  into  tears  ;  and  seeing  how  nervous  she  was,  we 
comforted  her  by  saying  we  had  heard  of  a  good  house,  and 
that  we  should  very  soon  abandon  our  present  habitation. 

"  A  few  nights  afterward,  my  mother  requested  me  and 
Charles  to  go  to  her  bed-room  and  fetch  her  frame,  that  she 
might  prepare  her  work  for  the  next  day.    It  was  after  supper, 


294 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


and  we  were  ascending  the  stairs  by  the  light  of  a  lamp  which 
was  always  kept  burning,  when  we  saw  going  up  before  us  a 
tall,  thin  figure,  with  hair  flowing  down  his  back,  and  wearing 
a  loose  powdering  gown.  We  both  at  once  concluded  it  was 
my  sister  Hannah,  and  called  out :  '  It  won't  do,  Hannah — you 
can  not  frighten  us  !'  Upon  which  the  figure  turned  into  a 
recess  in  the  wall ;  but,  as  there  was  nobody  there  when  we 
passed,  we  concluded  that  Hannah  had  contrived,  somehow  or 
other,  to  slip  away  and  make  her  escape  by  the  back  stairs. 
On  telling  this  to  my  mother,  she  said  :  '  It  is  very  odd,  for 
Hannah  went  to  bed  with  a  headache  before  you  came  in  from 
your  walk ;'  and  sure  enough,  on  going  to  her  room,  there  we 
found  her  fast  asleep  ;  and  Alice,  who  was  at  work  there,  as- 
sured us  that  she  had  been  so  for  more  than  an  hour.  On  men- 
tioning this  circumstance  to  Creswell,  she  turned  quite  pale 
and  exclaimed  that  that  was  precisely  the  figure  she  and  Marsh 
nad  seen  in  their  bed-room. 

"  About  this  time,  my  brother  Harry  came  to  spend  a  few 
days  with  us,  and  we  gave  him  a  room  up  another  pair  of 
stairs,  at  the  opposite  end  of  the  house.  A  morning  or  two 
after  his  arrival,  when  he  came  down  to  breakfast,  he  asked  my 
mother  angrily  whether  she  thought  he  went  to  bed  drunk  and 
could  not  put  out  his  own  candle,  that  she  sent  those  French 
rascals  to  watch  him.  My  mother  assured  him  that  she  never 
thought  of  doing  such  a  thing ;  but  he  persisted  in  the  accusa- 
tion, adding:  '  Last  night  I  jumped  up  and  opened  the  door, 
and,  by  the  light  of  the  moon  through  the  skylight,  I  saw  the 
fellow  in  his  loose  gown  at  the  bottom  of  the  stairs.  If  I  had 
not  been  in  my  shirt,  I  would  have  gone  after  him  and  made 
him  remember  coming  to  watch  me.' 

"  We  were  now  preparing  to  quit  the  house,  having  secured 
another,  belonging  to  a  gentleman  who  was  going  to  spend 
some  time  in  Italy  ;  but,  a  few  days  before  our  removal,  it  hap- 
pened that  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Atkyns,  some  English  friends  of  ours, 
called,  to  whom  we  mentioned  these  circumstances,  observ- 
ing how  extremely  unpleasant  it  was  to  live  in  a  house  that 
somebody  found  means  of  getting  into,  though  how  they  con- 


HAUNTED  HOUSES. 


295 


trived  it  we  could  not  discover,  nor  what  their  motive  could  bo 
except  it  was  to  frighten  us;  adding,  that  nobody  could  Bleep 
in  the  room  Marsh  and  Creswell  had  been  obliged  to  give  up. 
Upon  this  Mrs.  Atkyns  laughed  heartily,  and  said  she  should 
like,  of  all  things,  to  sleep  there,  if  my  mother  would  allow  her, 
adding,  that  with  he^little  terrier  she  should  not  be  afraid  of 
any  ghost  that  ever  appeared.  As  my  mother  had,  of  course, 
no  objection  to  this  fancy  of  hers,  she  requested  Mrs.  Atkyns  to 
ride  home  with  the  groom,  in  order  that  the  latter  might  bring 
her  night-things  before  the  gates  of  the  town  would  be  shut,  as 
they  were  then  residing  a  little  way  in  the  country.  Mr.  At- 
kyns smiled  and  said  she  was  very  bold  ;  but  he  made  no  diffi- 
culties, and  sent  the  things,  —  and  his  wife  retired  with  her  dog 
to  her  room  when  we  retired  to  ours,  apparently  without  the 
least  apprehension. 

"  When  she  came  down  in  the  morning,  we  were  imme- 
diately struck  at  seeing  her  look  very  ill ;  and  on  inquiring  if 
she  too  had  been  frightened,  she  said  she  had  been  awakened 
in  the  night  by  something  moving  in  her  room,  and  that,  by  the 
light  of  the  night-lamp,  she  saw  most  distinctly  a  figure,  and 
that  the  dog,  which  was  spirited  and  flew  at  everything,  never 
stirred,  although  she  had  endeavored  to  make  him.  We  saw 
clearly  that  she  had  been  very  much  alarmed  ;  and  when  Mr. 
Atkyns  came,  and  endeavored  to  dissipate  the  feeling  by  per- 
suading her  that  she  might  have  dreamed  it,  she  got  quile 
angry.  We  could  not  help  thinking  that  she  had  actually  seen 
something ;  and  my  mother  said,  after  she  was  gone,  that  though 
she  could  not  bring  herself  to  believe  it  was  really  a  ghost,  still 
she  earnestly  hoped  that  she  might  get  out  of  the  house  with- 
out seeing  this  figure,  which  frightened  people  so  much. 

"  We  were  now  within  three  days  of  the  one  fixed  for  our 
removal.  I  had  been  taking  a  long  ride,  and,  being  tired,  had 
fallen  asleep  the  moment  I  lay  down ;  but,  in  the  middle  of  the 
night,  I  was  suddenly  awakened  —  I  can  not  tell  by  what,  for 
the  steps  over  our  heads  we  had  become  so  used  to  that  it  no 
longer  disturbed  us.  Well,  I  awoke.  I  had  been  lying  with 
my  face  toward  my  mother,  who  was  asleep  beside  me,  and,  as 


296 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


one  usually  does  on  awaking,  I  turned  to  the  other  side,  where, 
the  weather  being  warm,  the  curtain  of  the  bed  was  undrawn, 
as  it  was,  also,  at  the  foot ;  and  I  saw  standing  by  a  chest  of 
drawers,  which  were  betwixt  me  and  the  window,  a  thin,  tall 
figure,  in  a  loose  powdering  gown,  one  arm  resting  on  the 
drawers,  and  the  face  turned  toward  mg.  I  saw  it  quite  dis- 
tinctly by  the  night-light,  which  burned  clearly.  It  was  a  long, 
thin,  pale,  young  face,  with,  oh,  such  a  melancholy  expression 
as  can  never  be  effaced  from  my  memor^  !  I  was,  certainly, 
very  much  frightened  ;  but  my  great  horror  was,  lest  my  mother 
should  awake  and  see  the  figure.  I  turned  my  head  gently 
toward  her,  and  heard  her  breathing  high  in  a  sound  sleep. 
Just  then  the  clock  on  the  stairs  struck  four.  I  dare  say  it  was 
nearly  an  hour  before  I  ventured  to  look  again,  and  when  I  did 
take  courage  to  turn  my  eyes  toward  the  drawers,  there  was 
nothing;  yet  I  had  not  heard  the  slightest  sound,  though  I  had 
been  listening  with  the  greatest  intensity. 

"  As  you  may  suppose,  I  never  closed  my  eyes  again  ;  and 
glad  I  was  when  Creswell  knocked  at  the  door,  as  she  did  every 
morning,  for  we  always  locked  it,  and  it  was  my  business  to  get 
out  of  bed  and  let  her  in  ;  but  on  this  occasion,  instead  of  doing 
so,  I  called  out,  *  Come  in ;  the  door  is  not  fastened  upon 
which  she  answered  that  it  was,  and  I  was  obliged  to  get  out  of 
bed  and  admit  her  as  usual. 

"  When  I  told  my  mother  what  had  happened,  she  was  very 
grateful  to  me  for  not  waking  her,  and  commended  me  much 
for  my  resolution  ;  but  as  she  was  always  my  first  object,  that 
was  not  to  be  wondered  at.  She  however  resolved  not  to  risk 
another  night  in  the  house ;  and  we  got  out  of  it  that  very  day, 
after  instituting,  with  the  aid  of  the  servants,  a  thorough  search, 
with  a  view  to  ascertain  if  there  was  any  possible  means  of 
getting  into  the  rooms  except  by  the  usual  modes  of  ingress ; 
but  our  search  was  vain  —  none  could  be  discovered. 

"  I  think,  from  the  errors  in  the  names,  &c,  that  the  publisher 
of  the  'Accredited  Ghost-Stories*  must  have  obtained  his  ac- 
count from  the  inhabitants  of  Lille." 

Considering  the  number  of  people  that  were  in  the  house, 


HAUNTED  HOUSES. 


297 


the  fearlessness  of  the  family,  and  their  disinclination  to  believe 
in  what  is  called  the  supernatural,  together  with  the  great  inter- 
est the  owner  of  this  large  and  handsome  residence  must  have 
had  in  discovering  the  trick,  if  there  had  been  one,  I  think  it  is 
difficult  to  find  any  other  explanation  of  this  strange  story,  than 
that  the  sad  and  disappointed  spirit  of  this  poor,  injured,  and 
probably  murdered  boy,  had  never  been  disengaged  from  its 
earthly  relations,  to  which  regret  for  its  frustrated  hopes  and 
violated  rights  still  held  it  attached. 

There  is  a  story  told  by  Pliny  the  younger,  of  a  house  at 
Athens,  in  which  nobody  could  live,  from  its  being  haunted. 
At  length  the  philosopher  Athenadorus  took  it ;  and  the  first 
night  he  was  there,  he  seems  to  have  comported  himself  very 
much  as  the  courageous  Mrs.  Canning  did,  on  a  similar  occa- 
sion, at  Plymouth.  He  sent  his  servants  to  bed,  and  set  him- 
self seriously  to  work  with  his  writing  materials,  determined 
that  fancy  should  not  be  left  free  to  play  him  false.  For  some 
time  all  was  still,  and  his  mind  was  wholly  engaged  in  his  la- 
bors, when  he  heard  a  sound  like  the  rattling  of  chains  —  which 
was  the  sound  that  had  frightened  everybody  out  of  the  house ; 
but  Athenadorus  closed  his  ears,  kept  his  thoughts  collected, 
and  wrote  on,  without  lifting  up  his  eyes.  The  noise,  however, 
increased  ;  it  approached  the  door  ;  it  entered  the  room ;  then 
he  looked  round,  and  beheld  the  figure  of  an  old  man,  lean, 
haggard,  and  dirty,  with  dishevelled  hair,  and  a  long  beard,  who 
held  up  his  finger  and  beckoned  him.  Athenadorus  made  a 
gesture  with  his  own  hand  in  return,  signifying  that  he  should 
wait,  and  went  on  with  his  writing.  Then  the  figure  advanced 
and  shook  his  chains  over  the  philosopher's  head,  who,  on  look- 
ing up,  saw  him  beckoning  as  before  ;  whereupon  he  arose  and 
followed  him.  The  apparition  walked  slowly,  as  if  obstructed 
by  his  chains ;  and  having  conducted  him  to  a  certain  spot  in 
the  court,  which  separated  the  two  divisions  of  an  ancient  Greek 
house,  he  suddenly  disappeared.  Athenadorus  gathered  to- 
gether some  grass  and  leaves,  in  order  to  mark  the  place ;  and 
the  next  day  he  recommended  the  authorities  to  dig  there,  which 
they  did,  and  found  the  skeleton  of  a  human  being  encircled 

13* 


298 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


with  chains.  It  being  taken  up,  and  the  rights  of  sepulture  duly 
performed,  the  house  was  no  longer  disturbed. 

This  was,  probably,  some  poor  prisoner  also ;  and  in  his  de- 
sire to  direct  notice  to  his  body,  we  see  the  prejudices  of  his 
age  and  country  surviving  dissolution.  Grose,  the  antiquary, 
who  is,  as  I  have  before  observed,  very  facetious  on  the  subject 
of  ghosts,  remarks  that  "  Dragging  chains  is  not  the  custom  of 
English  ghosts,  chains  and  black  vestments  being  chiefly  the 
accoutrements  of  foreign  spectres,  seen  in  arbitrary  govern- 
ments." Now,  this  is  a  very  striking  observation.  Grose's 
studies  had,  doubtless,  introduced  him  to  many  histories  of  this 
description ;  and  the  different  characteristics  of  these  appari- 
tions, under  different  governments,  is  a  circumstance  in  remark- 
able conformity  with  the  views  of  those  who  have  been  led  to 
take  a  much  more  serious  view  of  the  subject.  They  appear 
as  they  lived,  and  as  they  conceive  of  themselves  ;  and  when 
rapport  or  receptivity  enable  them  to  see,  and  to  render  them- 
selves visible  to  those  yet  living  in  the  flesh,  it  is  by  so  appear- 
ing that  they  tell  their  story,  and  ask  for  sympathy  and  assist- 
ance. I  say  enable  them  to  see,  because  there  seem  meny 
reasons  for  concluding  that  they  do  not,  under  ordinary  circum- 
stances, see  us,  any  more  than  we  see  them.  Whether  it  be 
rapport  with  certain  inhabitants,  or  whether  the  phenomenon  be 
dependent  on  certain  periods,  or  any  other  condition,  we  can 
not  tell ;  but  I  have  met  with  several  accounts  of  houses  in 
which  an  annoyance  of  this  sort  has  recurred  more  than  once, 
at  different  intervals,  sometimes  at  a  distance  of  seven  or  ten 
years,  the  intermediate  time  being  quite  free  from  it. 

One  of  the  most  melancholy  and  impressive  circumstances  of 

this  sort  I  have  met  with,  occurred  to  Mrs.  L  ,  a  lady  with 

wh>se  family  I  am  acquainted;  Mrs.  L   herself  having 

been  kind  enough  to  furnish  me  with  the  particulars  :  A  few 
years  since,  she  took  a  furnished  house  in  Stevenson  street, 
North  Shields,  and  she  had  been  in  it  but  a  very  few  hours  be- 
fore she  was  perplexed  by  hearing  feet  in  the  passage,  though, 
whenever  she  opened  the  door,  she  could  see  nobody.  She 
went  to  the  kitchen,  and  asked  the  servant  if  she  had  not  heard 


HAUNTED  HOUSES. 


299 


the  same  sound.    She  said  she  had  not,  but  that  there  seemed 

to  be  strange  noises  in  the  house.    When  Mrs.  L  went  to 

bed,  she  could  not  go  to  sleep  for  the  noise  of  a  child's  rattle, 
which  seemed  to  be  inside  her  curtains.  It  rattled  round  her 
head,  first  on  one  side,  then  on  the  other ;  then  there  were 
sounds  of  feet,  and  of  a  child  crying,  and  a  woman  sobbing ; 
and,  in  short,  so  many  strange  noises  that  the  servant  became 

frightened  and  went  away.    The  next  girl  Mrs.  L  engaged 

came  from  Leith,  and  was  a  stranger  to  the  place ;  but  she  had 
only  passed  a  night  in  the  house,  when  she  said  to  her  mistress, 
"This  is  a  troubled  house  you've  got  into,  ma'am;"  and  she 
described,  among  the  rest,  that  she  had  repeatedly  heard  her 
own  name  called  by  a  voice  near  her,  though  she  could  see  no- 
body. 

One  night  Mrs.  L          heard  a  voice,  like  nothing  human, 

close  to  her,  cry,  "  Weep  !  weep  !  weep  !"  Then  there  was  a 
sound  like  some  one  struggling  for  breath,  and  again  "  Weep  ! 
weep  !  weep  !"  Then  the  gasping,  and  a  third  time,  "  Weep  ! 
weep  !  weep  !"  She  stood  still,  and  looked  steadfastly  on  the 
spot  whence  the  voice  proceeded,  but  could  see  nothing ;  and 
her  little  boy,  who  held  her  hand,  kept  saying,  "  What  is  that, 
mamma?  What  is  that]"  She  describes  the  sound  as  most 
frightful.  All  the  noises  seemed  to  suggest  the  idea  of  child- 
hood, and  of  a  woman  in  trouble.  One  night,  when  it  was  cry- 
ing round  her  bed,  Mrs.  L  took  courage  and  adjured  it; 

upon  which  the  noise  ceased,  for  that  time,  but  there  was  no 

answer.    Mr.  L  was  at  sea  when  she  took  the  house,  and 

when  he  came  home  he  laughed  at  the  story  at  first,  but  soon 
became  so  convinced  the  account  she  gave  was  correct,  that  he 
wanted  to  have  the  boards  taken  up,  because,  from  the  noises 
seeming  to  hover  much  about  one  spot,  he  thought  perhaps  some 

explanation  of  the  mystery  might  be  found.    But  Mrs.  L  

objected  that  if  anything  of  a  painful  nature  were  discovered 
she  should  not  be  able  to  continue  in  the  house,  and  as  she  must 
pay  the  year's  rent,  she  wished,  if  possible,  to  make  out  the 
time. 

She  never  saw  anything  but  twice ;  once,  the  appearance  of 


300 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


a  child  seemed  to  fall  from  the  ceiling,  close  to  her,  and  then 
disappear ;  and  another  time  she  saw  a  child  run  into  a  closet 
to  a  room  at  the  top  of  the  house;  and  it  was  most  remarka- 
ble that  a  small  door  in  that  room,  which  was  used  for  going 
oat  </n  to  the  roof,  always  stood  open.  However  often  they 
shut  it,  it  was  opened  again  immediately  by  an  unseen  hand, 
even  before  they  got  out  of  the  room  ;  and  this  continued  the 
whole  time  they  were  in  the  house ;  while,  night  and  day,  some 
one  in  creaking  shoes  was  heard  pacing  backward  and  forward 

in  the  room  over  Mr.  and  Mrs.  L  Ts  heads. 

At  length  the  year  expired ;  and  to  their  great  relief  they 
quitted  the  house ;  but  five  or  six  years  afterward,  a  person 
who  had  bought  it  having  taken  up  the  floor  of  that  upper 
room  to  repair  it,  there  was  found,  close  to  the  small  door  above 
alluded  to,  the  skeleton  of  a  child.  It  was  then  remembered 
that  some  years  before  a  gentleman  of  somewhat  dissolute  habits 
had  resided  there,  and  that  he  was  supposed  to  have  been  on 
very  intimate  terms  with  a  young  woman-servant  who  lived 
with  him,  but  there  had  been  no  suspicion  of  anything  more 
criminal. 

About  six  years  ago,  Mr.  C  ,  a  gentleman  engaged  in 

business  in  London,  heard  of  a  good  country-house  in  the 
neighborhood  of  the  metropolis,  which  was  to  be  had  at  a  low 
rent.  It  was  rather  an  old-fashioned  place,  and  was  surrounded 
by  a  garden  and  pleasure-ground ;  and  having  taken  a  lease  of 
it  for  seven  years,  furnished  as  it  was,  his  family  removed 
thither,  and  he  joined  them  once  or  twice  a  week,  as  his 
business  permitted. 

They  had  been  some  considerable  time  in  the  house  without 
the  occurrence  of  anything  remarkable,  when  one  evening, 

toward  dusk,  Mrs.  C  ,  on  going  into  what  was  called  the 

oak  bedroom,  saw  a  female  figure  near  one  of  the  windows.  It 
was  apparently  a  young  woman  with  dark  hair  hanging  over 
her  shoulders,  a  silk  petticoat,  and  a  short,  white  robe,  and  she 
appeared  to  be  looking  eagerly  through  the  window,  as  if  ex- 
pecting somebody.    Mrs.  C   clapped  her  hand  upon  her 

eyes,  "  as  thinking  she  had  seen  something  she  ought  not  to 


HAUNTED  HOUSES. 


301 


have  seen,"  and  when  she  looked  again  the  figure  had  disap- 
peared. 

Shortly  after  this,  a  young  girl  who  filled  the  situation  of 
under  nursery-maid,  came  to  her  in  great  agitation,  saying  that 
she  had  had  a  terrible  fright,  from  seeing  a  very  ugly  old 
woman  looking  in  upon  her  as  she  passed  tl^p  window  in  the 
lobby.    The  girl  was  trembling  violently,  and  almost  crying,  so 

that  Mrs.  C          entertained  no  doubts  of  the  reality  of  her 

alarm.  She",  however,  thought  it  advisable  to  laugh  her  out  of 
her  fear,  and  went  with  her  to  the  window,  which  looked  into 
a  closed  court,  but  there  was  no  one  there,  neither  had  any  of 
the  other  servants  seen  such  a  person.  Soon  after  this,  the 
family  began  to  find  themselves  disturbed  with  strange,  and  fre- 
quently very  loud,  noises  during  the  night.  Among  the  rest,  there 
was  something  like  the  beating  of  a  crow-bar  upon  the  pump 
in  the  above-mentioned  court ;  but,  search  as  they  would,  they 

could  discover  no  cause  for  the  sound.  One  day,  when  Mr.  C  

had  brought  a  friend  from  London  to  stay  the  night  with  him, 

Mrs.  C  thought  proper  to  go  up  to  the  oak  bedroom,  where 

the  stranger  was  to  sleep,  for  the  purpose  of  inspecting  the  ar- 
rangements for  his  comfort,  when,  to  her  great  surprise,  some 
one  seemed  to  follow  her  up  to  the  fireplace,  though,  on  turning 
round,  there  was  nobody  to  be  seen.  She  said  nothing  about 
it,  however,  and  returned  below,  where  her  husband  and  the 
stranger  were  sitting.  Presently,  one  of  the  servants  (not  the 
one  mentioned  above)  tapped  at  the  door  and  requested  to 

speak  with  her,  and  Mrs.  C  g°mg  out,  she  told  her,  in  great 

agitation,  that  in  going  up  stairs  to  the  visiter's  room,  a  footstep 
had  followed  her  all  the  way  to  the  fireplace,  although  she  could 

see  nobody.     Mrs.  C   said  something  soothing,  and  that 

matter  passed,  she,  herself,  being  a  good  deal  puzzled,  but  still 
unwilling  to  admit  the  idea  that  there  was  anything  extra-natu- 
ral in  these  occurrences.  Repeatedly,  after  this,  these  footsteps 
weie  heard  in  different  parts  of  the  house,  when  nobody  was  to 
be  seen  ;  and  often,  while  she  was  lying  in  bed,  she  heard  them 
distinctly  approach  her  door,  when,  being  a  very  courageous 
woman,  she  would  start  out  with  a  loaded  pistol  in  her  hand, 


302 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


but  there  was  never  any  one  to  be  seen.  At  length  it  was 
•  impossible  to  conceal  from  herself  and  her  servants  that  these 
occurrences  were  of  an  extraordinary  nature,  and  the  latter,  as 
may  be  supposed,  felt  very  uncomfortable.  Among  other  un- 
pleasant things,  while  sitting  all  together  in  the  kitchen,  they 
used  to  see  the  ^atch  lifted  and  the  door  open,  though  no  one 

came  in  that  they  could  see ;  and  when  Mr.  C   himself 

watched  for  these  events,  although  they  took  place,  and  he  was 
quite  on  the  alert,  he  altogether  failed  in  detecting  any  visible 
agent. 

One  night,  the  same  servant  who  had  heard  the  footsteps  fol- 
lowing her  to  the  bedroom  fireplace,  happening  to  be  asleep  in 

Mrs.  C  's  chamber,  she  became  much  disturbed,  and  was 

heard  to  murmur,  "  Wake  me !  wake  me  !"  as  if  in  great  men- 
tal anguish.  Being  aroused,  she  told  her  mistress  a  dream  she 
had  had,  which  seemed  to  throw  some  light  upon  these  myste- 
ries. She  thought  she  was  in  the  oak  bedroom,  and  at  one  end 
of  it  she  saw  a  young  female  in  an  old-fashioned  dress,  with 
long  dark  hair,  while  in  another  part  of  the  room  was  a  very 
ugly  old  woman,  also  in  old-fashioned  attire.  The  latter  ad- 
dressing the  former  said,  "  What  have  you  done  with  the  child, 
Emily  1  What  have  you  done  with  the  child  Vr  To  which  the 
younger  figure  answered,  "  Oh,  1  did  not  kill  it.  He  was  pre- 
served, and  grew  up,  and  joined  the  regiment,  and  went 

to  India."  Then  addressing  the  sleeper,  the  young  lady  con- 
tinued, u  I  have  never  spoken  to  mortal  before  ;  but  I  will  tell 
you  all.  My  name  is  Miss  Black  ;  and  this  old  woman  is  Nurse 
Black.  Black  is  not  her  name,  but  we  call  her  so  because  she 
has  been  so  long  in  the  family."  Here  the  old  woman  inter- 
rupted the  speaker  by  coming  up  and  laying  her  hand  on  the 
dreaming  girl's  shoulder,  while  she  said  something  ;  but  she 
could  not  remember  what,  for,  feeling  excruciating  pain  from 
the  touch,  she  had  been  so  far  aroused  as  to  be  sensible  she  was 
asleep,  and  to  beg  to  be  wholly  awakened. 

As  the  old  woman  seemed  to  resemble  the  figure  that  one 
of  the  other  servants  had  seen  looking  into  the  window,  and 
the  young  one  resembled  that  she  had  herself  seen  in  the  oak 


HAUNTED  HOUSES. 


303 


chamber,  Mrs.  C  naturally  concluded  that  there  was  some- 
thing extraordinary  about  this  dream,  and  she  consequently 
took  an  early  opportunity  of  inquiring  in  the  neighborhood 
what  was  known  as  to  the  names  or  circumstances  of  the  for- 
mer inhabitants  of  this  house;  and,  after  much  investigation, 
she  learned  that,  about  seventy  or  eighty  years  before,  it  had 
been  in  the  possession  of  a  Mrs.  Ravenhall,  who  had  a  niece, 

named  Miss  Black,  living  with  her.    This  niece  Mrs.  C  

supposed  might  be  the  younger  of  the  two  persons  who  was 
seen.  Subsequently,  she  saw  her  again  in  the  same  room, 
wringing  her  hands,  and  looking  with  a  mournful  significance 
to  one  corner.  They  had  the  boards  taken  up  on  that  spot, 
but  nothing  was  found. 

One  of  the  most  curious  incidents,  connected  with  this  story, 
remains  to  be  told.  After  occupying  the  house  three  years, 
they  were  preparing  to  quit  it  —  not  on  account  of  its  be- 
ing haunted,  but  for  other  reasons  —  when  on  awaking  one 

morning,  a  short  time  before  their  departure,  Mrs.  C  saw, 

standing  at  the  foot  of  her  bed,  a  dark-complexioned  man,  in  a 
working  dress,  a  fustian  jacket,  and  red  comforter  round  his 

neck  —  who,  however,  suddenly  disappeared.    Mr.  C  was 

lying  beside  her  at  the  time,  but  asleep.  This  was  the  last  ap- 
parition seen.  But  the  strange  thing  is,  that  a  few  days  after 
this,  it  being  necessary  to  order  in  a  small  quantity  of  coals  to 

serve  till  their  removal,  Mr.  C          undertook  to  perform  the 

commission  on  his  Wcfy  to  London.  Accordingly,  the  next  day, 
she  mentioned  to  him  that  the  coals  had  arrived  ;  which  he  said 
was  very  fortunate,  since  he  had  entirely  forgotten  to  order 
them.  Wondering  whence  they  had  come,  Mrs.  C   here- 
upon inquired  of  the  servants,  who  none  of  them  knew  anything 
about  the  matter ;  but  on  interrogating  a  person  in  trie  village, 
by  whom  they  had  frequently  been  provided  with  this  article, 
he  answered  that  they  had  been  ordered  by  a  dark  man,  in 
a  fustian  jacket  and  red  comfort,  who  had  called  for  the 
purpose. 

After  this  last  event,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  C  quitted  the  house  ; 

but  I  have  heard  that  its  subsequent  tenants  encountered  some 


304 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


similar  annoyances,  although  I  have  no  means  of  ascertainin 
the  particulars. 

But  perhaps  one  of  the  most  remarkable  cases  of  haunting  i 
modern  times,  is  that  of  Willington,  near  Newcastle,  in  my  a 
count  of  which,  however,  I  find  myself  anticipated  by  Mr 
Howitt ;  and  as  he  has  had  the  advantage  of  visiting  the  plac 
which  I  have  not,  I  shall  take  the  liberty  of  borrowing  his  d 
scription  of  it,  prefacing  the  account  with  the  following  lette 
from  Mr.  Proctor,  the  owner  of  the  house,  who  it  will  be  see 
vouches  for  the  general  authenticity  of  the  narrative.  The  le 
ter  was  written  in  answer  to  one  from  me,  requesting  som 
more  precise  information  than  I  had  been  able  to  obtain  :  — 

"  Josh.  Proctor  hopes  C.  Crowe  will  excuse  her  note  havin 
remained  two  weeks  unanswered,  during  which  time  J.  P.  h 
been  from  home,  or  particularly  engaged.  Feeling  averse  t 
add  to  the  publicity  the  circumstances  occurring  in  his  house 
at  Willington,  have  already  obtained,  J.  P.  would  rather  n 
furnish  additional  particulars ;  but  if  C.  C.  is  not  in  possessio 
of  the  number  of  '  Howitt's  Journal,'  which  contains  a  variet 
of  details  on  the  subject,  he  will  be  glad  to  forward  her  one 
He  would,  at  the  same  time,  assure  C.  Crowe  of  the  strict  accu 
racy  of  that  portion  of  W.  Howitt's  narrative  which  is  extracte 
from  '  Richardson's  Table  Book.'  W.  Howitt's  statemen 
derived  from  his  recollection  of  verbal  communications  wit 
branches  of  J.  Proctor's  family,  are  likewise  essentially  correc 
though,  as  might  be  expected  in  some  «degree,  erroneous  cir 
cumstantially. 

"  J.  P.  takes  leave  to  express  his  conviction  that  the  unbelie 
of  the  educated  classes  in  apparitions  of  the  deceased  and  kin- 
dred phenomena  is  not  grounded  on  a  fair  philosophic  examina- 
tion of  the  facts,  which  have  induced  the  popular  belief  of  all 
ages  and  countries ;  and  that  it  will  be  found  by  succeeding 
ages  to  have  been  nothing  better  than  unreasoning  and  unrea- 
sonable prejudice. 

"  Willington,  near  Newcastle-on~Tyne, 
7  th  mo.  22,  1847." 


HAUNTED  HOUSES. 


395 


"  VISITS  TO  REMARKABLE  PLACES. 

"BY  WILLIAM  HOWITT. 
"  THE    HAUNTED    HOUSE    AT    WILLINGTON,    NEAR  NEWCASTLE- 

ON-TYNE. 

"  We  have  of  late  years  settled  it  as  an  established  fact  that 
ghosts  and  haunted  houses  were  the  empty  creation  of  ignorant 
times.  We  have  comfortably  persuaded  ourselves  that  such 
fancies  only  hovered  in  the  twilight  of  superstition,  and  that  in 
these  enlightened  days  they  had  vanished  for  ever.  How  often 
has  it  been  triumphantly  referred  to,  as  a  proof  that  all  such 
things  were  the  offspring  of  ignorance,  that  nothing  of  the  kind 
is  heard  of  now  1  What  shall  we  say,  then,  to  the  following 
facts  ]  Here  we  have  ghosts  and  a  haunted  house  still.  We 
have  them  in  the  face  of  our  vaunted  noonday  light — in  the 
midst  of  a  busy  and  a  populous  neighborhood  —  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  a  large  and  most  intelligent  town  —  and  in  a  family 
neither  ignorant  nor  in  any  other  respect  superstitious.  For 
years  have  these  ghosts  and  hauntings  disturbed  the  quiet  of  a 
highly  respectable  family,  and  continue  to  haunt  and  disturb, 
spite  of  the  incredulity  of  the  wise,  the  investigations  of  the  cu- 
rious, and  the  anxious  vigilance  of  the  suffering  family  itself. 

"  Between  the  railway  running  from  Newcastle-on-Tyne  to 
North  Shields,  and  the  river  Tyne,  there  lie  in  a  hollow  some 
few  cottages,  a  parsonage,  a  mill,  and  a  miller's  house :  these 
constitute  the  hamlet  of  Willington.  Just  above  these  the  rail- 
way is  carried  across  the  valley  on  lofty  arches,  and  from  it 
you  look  down  on  the  mill  and  cottages,  lying  at  a  considerable 
depth  below.  The  mill  is  a  large  steam  flour-mill,  like  a  fac- 
tory, and  the  miller's  house  stands  near  it,  but  not  adjoining  it. 
None  of  the  cottages  which  lie  between  these  premises  and  the 
railway,  either,  are  in  contact  with  them.  The  house  stands 
on  a  sort  of  little  promontory,  round  which  runs  the  channel  of 
a  water-course,  which  appears  to  fill  and  empty  with  the  tides. 
On  one  side  of  the  mill  and  house,  slopes  away  upward  a  field 
to  a  considerable  distance,  where  it  is  terminated  by  other  en- 
closures ;  on  the  other  stands  a  considerable  extent  of  ballast- 
hill —  i.  e.,  one  of  the  numerous  hills  on  the  banks  of  the  Tyne 


306 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


made  by  the  deposite  of  ballast  from  the  vessels  trading  thither. 
At  a  distance,  the  top  of  the  mill  seems  about  level  with  the 
country  around  it.  The  place  lies  about  half-way  between 
Newcastle  and  North  Shields. 

"  This  mill  is,  I  believe,  the  property  of,  and  is  worked  by, 
Messrs.  Unthank  and  Procter.  Mr.  Joseph  Procter  resides  on 
the  spot  in  the  house  just  by  the  mill,  as  already  stated.  He  is 
a  member  of  the  society  of  friends  —  a  gentleman  in  the  very 
prime  of  life  —  and  his  wife,  an  intelligent  lady,  is  of  a  family 
of  friends  in  Carlisle.  They  have  several  young  children. 
This  very  respectable  and  well-informed  family,  belonging  to  a 
sect  which  of  all  others  is  most  accustomed  to  control,  to  regu- 
late, and  to  put  down  even  the  imagination  —  the  last  people  in 
the  world,  as  it  would  appear,  in  fact,  to  be  affected  by  any 
mere  imaginary  terrors  or  impressions  —  have  for  years  been 
persecuted  by  the  most  extraordinary  noises  and  apparitions. 

"  The  house  is  not  an  old  house,  as  will  appear ;  it  was  built 
about  the  year  1800.  It  has  no  particularly  spectral  look  about 
it.  Seeing  it  in  passing,  or  within,  ignorant  of  its  real  charac- 
ter, one  should  by  no  means  say  that  it  was  a  place  likely  to 
have  the  reputation  of  being  haunted.  Yet  looking  down  from 
the  railway,  and  seeing  it  and  the  mill  lying  in  a  deep  hole,  one 
might  imagine  various  strange  noises  likely  to  be  heard  in  such 
a  place  in  the  night,  from  vessels  on  the  river  —  from  winds 
sweeping  and  howling  down  the  gulley  in  which  it  stands — 
from  engines  in  the  neighborhood  connected  with  coal-mines, 
one  of  which,  I  could  not  tell  where,  was  making  at  the  time  I 
was  there  a  wild  sighing  noise,  as  I  stood  on  the  hill  above. 
There  is  not  any  passage,  however,  known  of  under  the  house, 
by  which  subterranean  noises  could  be  heard ;  nor  are  they 
merely  noises  that  are  heard,  —  distinct  apparitions  are  declared 
to  be  seen. 

"  Spite  of  the  unwillingness  of  Mr.  Procter,  that  these  mysteri- 
ous circumstances  should  become  quite  public,  and  averse  as  he 
is  to  make  known  himself  these  strange  visitations,  they  were 
of  such  a  nature  that  they  soon  became  rumored  over  the  whole 
neighborhood.    Numbers  of  people  hurried  to  the  place  to  in- 


HAUNTED  HOUSES. 


307 


quire  into  the  truth  of  them,  and  at  length  a  remarkable  occur- 
rence brought  them  into  print.  What  this  occurrence  was,  the 
pamphlet  which  appeared,  and  which  was  afterward  reprinted 
in  '  The  Local  Historian's  Table-Book,'  published  by  Mr.  M.  A. 
Richardson,  of  Newcastle,  and  which  I  here  copy,  will  explain. 
It  will  be  seen  that  the  writer  of  this  article  has  the  fullest  faith 
in  the  reality  of  what  he  relates,  as,  indeed,  vast  numbers  of  the 
best  informed  inhabitants  of  the  neighborhood  have. 

"AUTHENTIC   ACCOUNT   OF  A  VISIT  TO  THE  HAUNTED  HOUSE 
AT  WILLINGTON. 

"  Were  we  to  draw  an  inference  from  the  number  of  cases 
of  reported  visitatations  from  the  invisible  world  that  have  been 
made  public  of  late,  we  might  be  led  to  imagine  that  the  days 
of  supernatural  agency  were  about  to  recommence,  and  that 
ghosts  and  hobgoblins  were  about  to  resume  their  sway  over 
the  fears  of  mankind.  Did  we,  however,  indulge  in  such  an 
apprehension,  a  glance  at  the  current  tone  of  the  literature  and 
philosophy  of  the  day,  when  treating  of  these  subjects,  would 
show  a  measure  of  unbelief  regarding  them  as  scornful  and  un- 
compromising as  the  veriest  atheist  or  materialist  could  desire 
Notwithstanding  the  prevalence  of  this  feeling  among  the  edu- 
cated classes,  there  is  a  curiosity  and  interest  manifested  in 
every  occurrence  of  this  nature,  that  indicate  a  lurking  faith  at 
bottom,  which  an  affected  skepticism  fails  entirely  to  conceal. 
We  feel,  therefore,  that  we  need  not  apologise  to  our  readers 
for  introducing  the  following  particulars  of  a  visit  to  a  house  in 
this  immediate  neighborhood,  which  had  become  notorious  for 
some  years  previous,  as  being  '  haunted  ;'  and  several  of  the 
reputed  deeds,  or  misdeeds,  of  its  supernatural  visitant  had  been 
published  far  and  wide  by  rumor's  thousand  tongues.  We 
deem  it  as  worthy  to  be  chronicled  as  the  doings  of  its  contem- 
pory  genii  at  Windsor,  Dublin,  Liverpool,  Carlisle,  and  Sun 
derland,  and  which  have  all  likewise  hitherto  failed,  after  public 
investigation,  to  receive  a  solution  consistent  with  a  rejection 
of  spiritual  agency. 

"  We  have  visited  the  house  in  question,  which  is  well  known 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


to  many  of  our  readers,  as  being  near  a  large  steam  corn- 
mill,  in  full  view  of  Wellington  viaduct,  on  the  Newcastle  and 
Shields  railway ;  and  it  may  not  be  irrelevant  to  mention  that 
it  is  quite  detached  from  the  mill,  or  any  other  premises,  and 
has  no  cellaring  under  it.  The  proprietor  of  the  house,  who 
lives  in  it,  declines  to  make  public  the  particulars  of  the  dis- 
turbance to  which  he  has  been  subjected,  and  it  must  be  under- 
stood that  the  account  of  the  visit  we  are  about  to  lay  before 
our  readers  is  derived  from  a  friend  to  whom  Dr.  Drury  pre- 
sented a  copy  of  his  correspondence  on  the  subject,  with  power 
to  make  such  use  of  it  as  he  thought  proper.  "We  learned  that 
the  house  had  been  reputed,  at  least  one  room  in  it,  to  have  been 
haunted  forty  years  ago,  and  had  afterward  been  undisturbed 
for  a  long  period,  during  some  years  of  which  quietude  the 
present  occupant  lived  in  it  unmolested.  We  are  also  informed 
that  about  the  time  that  the  premises  were  building,  viz.,  in  1800 
or  1801,  there  were  reports  of  some  deed  of  darkness  having 
been  committed  by  some  one  employed  about  them.  We 
should  extend  this  account  beyond  the  limits  we  have  set  to 
ourselves,  did  we  now  enter  upon  a  full  account  of  the  strange 
things  which  have  been  seen  and  heard  about  the  place  by  sev- 
eral of  the  neighbors,  as  well  as  those  which  are  reported  to 
have  been  seen,  heard,  and  felt,  by  the  inmates,  whose  servants 
have  been  changed,  on  that  account,  many  times.  We  proceed, 
therefore,  to  give  the  following  letters  which  have  been  passed 
between  individuals  of  undoubted  veracity,  leaving  the  reader 
to  draw  his  own  conclusions  on  the  subject. 

"(Copy,  No.  1.) 

«  llth  June,  1840. 

"  To  Mr.  Procter  : 

"  Sir  :  Having  heard  from  indisputable  authority,  viz.,  that 
jof  my  excellent  friend,  Mr.  Davison,  of  Low  Wellington,  far- 
mer, that  you  and  your  family  are  disturbed  by  most  unac- 
countable noises  at  night,  I  beg  leave  fro  tell  you  that  I  have 
read  attentively  Wesley's  account  of  such  things,  but  with,  I 
must  confess,  no  great  belief ;  but  an  account  of  this  report 


HAUNTED  HOUSES. 


309 


coming  from  one  of  your  sect,  which  I  admire  for  candor  and 
simplicity,  my  curiosity  is  excited  to  a  high  pitch,  which  I 
would  fain  satisfy.  My  desire  is  to  remain  alone  in  the  house 
all  night  with  no  companion  but  my  own  watch-dog,  in  which, 
as  far  as  courage  and  fidelity  are  concerned,  I  place  much  more 
reliance  than  upon  any  three  young  gentlemen  I  know  of.  And 
it  is  also  my  hope  that,  if  I  have  a  fair  trial,  I  shall  be  able  to 
unravel  this  mystery.  Mr.  Davison  will  give  you  every  satis- 
faction if  you  take  the  trouble  to  inquire  of  him  concerning  me. 
"I  am,  sir,  yours  most  respectfully, 

"  Edward  Drury 

«  At  C.  C.  Embleton's,  Surgeon, 

«  No.  10  Church  street,  Sunderland. 

"(Copy,  No.  2.) 

"  Joseph  Procter's  respects  to  Edward  Drury,  whose  note 
he  received  a  few  days  ago,  expressing  a  wish  to  pass  a  night 
in  his  house  at  Willington.  As  the  family  is  going  from  home 
on  the  23d  instant,  and  one  of  Unthank  and  Procter's  men  will 
sleep  in  the  house,  if  Edward  Drury  feel  inclined  to  come  on 
or  after  the  24th,  to  spend  a  night  in  it,  he  is  at  liberty  so  to  do, 
with  or  without  his  faithful  dog,  which,  by-the-by,  can  be  of  no 
possible  use,  except  as  company.  At  the  same  time,  Joseph 
Procter  things  it  best  to  inform  him  that  particular  disturban- 
ces are  far  from  frequent  at  present,  being  only  occasional,  and 
quite  uncertain,  and  therefore  the  satisfaction  of  Edward  Dru- 
ry's  curiosity  must  be  considered  as  problematical.  The  best 
chance  will  be  afforded  by  sitting  up  alone  in  the  third  story, 
till  it  be  fairly  daylight,  say  two  or  three,  A.  M. 

«  Willington,  6th  mo.  2lst,  1840. 

"  Joseph  Procter  will  leave  word  with  T.  Maun,  foreman,  to 
admit  Edward  Drury. 

"  Mr.  Procter  left  home  with  his  family  on  the  23d  of  June, 
and  got  an  old  servant,  who  was  then  out  of  place  in  conse- 
quence of  ill-health,  to  take  charge  of  the  house  during  their 
absence.  Mr.  Procter  returned  alone,  on  account  of  business, 
on  the  3d  of  July,  on  the  evening  of  which  day  Mr.  Drury  and 


310 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


his  companion  also  unexpectedly  arrived.  After  the  house  had 
been  locked  up,  every  coiner  of  it  was  minutely  examined. 
The  room  out  of  which  the  apparition  issued  is  too  shallow 
to  contain  any  person.  Mr.  Drury  End  his  friend  had  lights  hy 
them,  and  were  satisfied  that  there  was  no  one  in  the  house  be- 
sides Mr.  Procter,  the  servant,  and  themselves. 

"(Copy,  No.  3.) 

"  Monday  Morning,  July  6th,  1840. 

"  To  Mr.  Procter  : 

"  Dear  Sir  :  I  am  sorry  I  was  not  at  home  to  receive  you 
yesterday,  when  you  kindly  called  to  inquire  for  me.  I  am 
happy  to  state,  that  I  am  really  surprised  that  I  have  been  so 
little  affected  as  I  am,  after  that  horrid  and  most  awful  affair. 
The  only  bad  effect  that  I  feel  is  a  heavy  dullness  in  one  of  my 
ears,  the  right  one.  I  call  it  heavy  dullness  because  I  not  only 
do  not  hear  distinctly,  but  feel  in  it  a  constant  noise.  This  I 
never  was  affected  with  bef  >re  ;  but  I  doubt  not  it  will  go  off. 
I  am  persuaded  that  no  one  went  to  your  house  at  any  time 
more  disbelieving  in  respect  to  seeing  anything  peculiar  ;  and 
now  no  one  can  be  more  satisfied  than  myself.  I  will,  in  the 
course  of  a  few  days,  send  you  a  full  detail  of  all  I  saw  and 
heard.  Mr.  Spence  and  two  other  gentlemen  came  down  to 
my  house  in  the  afternoon  to  hear  my  detail ;  but,  sir,  could  I 
account  for  these  noises  from  natural  causes,  yet  so  firmly  am  I 
persuaded  of  the  horrid  apparition,  that  I  would  affirm  that 
what  I  saw  with  my  eyes  was  a  punishment  to  me  for  my 
scoffing  and  unbelief ;  that  I  am  assured  that,  as  far  as  the  hor- 
ror is  concerned,  they  are  happy  that  believe  and  have  not 
seen.  Let  me  trouble  you,  sir,  to  give  me  the  address  of  your 
sister,  from  Cumberland,  who  was  alarmed,  and  also  of  your 
brother.  I  would  feel  a  satisfaction  in  having  a  line  from  them; 
and,  above  all  things,  it  will  be  a  great  cause  of  joy  to  me,  if 
you  never  allow  your  young  family  to  be  in  that  horrid  house 
again.  Hoping  you  will  write  a  few  lines  at  your  leisure, 
"  I  remain,  dear  sir,  yours  very  truly, 

"Edward  Drury. 


HAUNTED  HOUSES 


311 


"  (Copy,  No.  4.) 

"  Willi nbton,  7th  mo.  9,  1840. 
"Respected  Friend,  E.  Drury  :  Having  been  at  Sunder- 
land, I  did  not  receive  thine  of  the  6th  till  yesterday  morning. 
I  am  glad  to  hear  thou  art  getting  well  over  the  effects  of  thy 
unlooked-for  visitation.  I  hold  in  respect  thy  bold  and  manly 
assertion  of  the  truth,  in  the  face  of  that  ridicule  and  ignorant 
conceit  with  which  that  which  is  called  the  supernatural,  in  the 
present  day,  is  usually  assailed. 

"  I  shall  be  glad  to  receive  thy  detail,  in  which  it  will  be 
needful  to  be  very  particular  in  showing  that  thou  couldst  not  * 
be  asleep  or  attacked  by  nightmare,  or  mistake  a  reflection  of 
the  candle,  as  some  sagaciously  suppose. 

*  I  remain,  respectfully,  thy  friend, 

"Josh.  Procter. 
"P.  S.  —  I  have  about  thirty  witnesses  to  various  things 
which  can  not  be  satisfactorily  accounted  for  on  any  other  prin- 
ciple than  that  of  spiritual  agency. 

"  (Copy,  No.  5.) 

"  Sunderland,  July  13,  1840. 
"  Dear  Sir  :  I  hereby,  according  to  promise  in  my  last  let- 
ter, forward  you  a  true  account  of  what  I  heard  and  saw  at 
your  house,  in  which  I  was  led  to  pass  the  night  from  various 
rumors  circulated  by  most  respectable  parties — particularly 
from  an  account  by  my  esteemed  friend  Mr.  Davison,  whose 
name  I  mentioned  to  you  in  a  former  letter.  Having  received 
your  sanction  to  visit  your  mysterious  dwelling,  I  went  on'the 
3d  of  July,  accompanied  by  a  friend  of  mine,  T.  Hudson.  This 
was  not  according  to  promise,  nor  in  accordance  with  my  first 
intent,  as  I  wrote  to  you  I  would  come  alone ;  but  I  felt  grati- 
fied at  your  kindness  in  not  alluding  to  the  liberty  I  had  taken, 
as  it  ultimately  proved  for  the  best.  I  must  here  mention  that, 
not  expecting  you  at  home,  I  had  in  my  pocket  a  brace  of  pis- 
tols, determining  in  my  mind  to  let  one  of  them  drop  before 
the  miller,  as  if  by  accident,  for  fear  he  should  presume  to  play 
tricks  upon  me ;  but,  after  my  interview  with  you,  I  felt  there 


312 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


was  no  occasion  for  weapons,  and  did  not  load  them,  after  you 
had  allowed  us  to  inspect  as  minutely  as  we  pleased  every  por- 
tion of  the  house.  I  sat  down  on  the  third  story  landing, 
fully  expecting  to  account  for  any  noises  that  I  might  hear,  in 
a  philosophical  manner.  This  was  about  eleven  o'clock,  p.  m. 
About  ten  minutes  to  twelve,  we  both  heard  a  noise,  as  if  a 
numbe%of  people  were  pattering  with  their  bare  feet  upon  the 
floor ;  and  yet  so  singular  was  the  noise,  that  I  could  not 
minutely  determine  whence  it  proceeded.  A  few  minutes 
afterward  we  heard  a  noise,  as  if  some  one  was  knocking  with 
his  knuckles  among  our  feet ;  this  was  followed  by  a  hollow 
cough  from  the  very  room  from  which  the  apparition  pro- 
ceeded. The  only  noise  after  this,  was  as  if  a  person  was 
rustling  against  the  wall  in  coming  up  stairs.  At  a  quarter  to 
one,  I  told  my  friend  that,  feeling  a  little  cold,  I  would  like  to 
go  to  bed,  as  we  might  hear  the  noise  equally  well  there ;  he 
replied  that  he  would  not  go  to  bed  till  daylight.  I  took  up  a 
note  which  I  had  accidentally  dropped,  and  began  to  read  it, 
after  which  I  took  out  my  watch  to  ascertain  the  time,  and 
found  that  it  wanted  ten  minutes  to  one.  Jn  taking  my  eyes 
from  the  watch,  they  became  riveted  upon  a  closet-door,  which 
I  distinctly  saw  open,  and  saw  also  the  figure  of  a  female  attired 
in  grayish  garments,  with  the  head  inclining  downward,  and  one 
hand  pressed  upon  the  chest  as  if  in  pain,  and  the  other,  viz., 
the  right  hand,  extended  toward  the  floor,  with  the  index  finger 
pointing  downward.  It  advanced  with  an  apparently  cautious 
step  across  the  floor  toward  me ;  immediately  as  it  approached 
my  'friend,  who  was  slumbering,  its  right  hand  was  extended 
toward  him :  I  then  rushed  at  it,  giving,  as  Mr.  Procter  states, 
a  most  awful  yell ;  but,  instead  of  grasping  it,  I  fell  upon  my 
friend,  and  I  recollected  nothing  distinctly  for  nearly  three 
hours  afterward.  I  have  since  learned  that  I  was  carried  down 
stairs  in  an  agony  of  fear  and  terror. 

H  I  hereby  certify  that  the  above  account  is  strictly  true  and 
correct  in  every  respect. 

**  Edward  Drury. 

"  North  Shields. 


HAUNTED  HOUSES. 


313 


*4  The  following  more  recent  case  of  an  apparition  seen  in 
the  window  of  the  same  house  from  the  outside,  by  four  credi- 
ble witnesses,  who  had  the  opportutiy  of  scrutinizing  it  for 
more  than  ten  minutes,  is  given  on  most  unquestionable  author- 
ity. One  of  these  witnesses  is  a  young  lady,  a  near  connection 
of  the  family,  who,  for  obvious  reasons,  did  not  sleep  in  the 
house ;  another,  a  respectable  man,  who  has  been  many  years 
employed  in,  and  is  foreman  of,  the  manufactory  ;^his  daughter, 
aged  about  seventeen  ;  and  his  wife,  who  first  saw  the  object 
and  called  out  the  others  to  view  it.  The  appearance  pre- 
sented was  that  of  a  bareheaded  man,  in  a  flowing  robe  like  a 
surplice,  who  glided  backward  and  forward  about  three  feet 
from  the  floor,  or  level  with  the  bottom  of  the  second  story  win- 
dow, seeming  to  enter  the  wall  on  each  side,  and  thus  present 
a  side  view  in  passing.  It  then  stood  still  in  the  window,  and 
a  part  of  the  body  came  through  both  the  blind,  which  was  close 
down,  and  the  window,  as  its  luminous  body  intercepted  the 
view  of  the  framework  of  the  window.  It  was  semi-trans- 
parent, and  as  bright  as  a  star,  diffusing  a  radiance  all  around. 
As  it  grew  more  dim,  it  assumed  a  blue  tinge,  and  gradually 
faded  away  from  the  head  downward.  The  foreman  passed 
twice  close  to  the  house  under  the  window,  and  also  went  to 
inform  the  family,  but  found  the  house  locked  up.  There  was 
no  moonlight,  nor  a  ray  of  light  visible  anywhere  about,  and  no 
person  near.  Had  any  magic  lantern  been  used,  it  could  not 
possibly  have  escaped  detection ;  and  it  is  obvious  nothing  of 
that  kind  could  have  been  employed  on  the  inside,  as  in  that 
case  the  light  could  only  have  been  thrown  upon  the  blind,  and 
not  so  as  to  intercept  the  view  both  of  the  blind  and  of  the 
window  from  without.  The  owner  of  the  house  slept  in  that 
room,  and  must  have  entered  it  shortly  after  this  figure  had 
disappeared. 

*'  It  may  well  be  supposed  what  a  sensation  the  report  of  the 
visit  of  Mr.  Drury  and  its  result  must  have  created.  It  flew 
far  and  wide,  and  when  it  appeared  in  print,  still  wider;  and, 
what  was  not  a  little  singular,  Mr.  Procter  received,  in  conse- 
quence, a  great  number  of  letters  from  individuals  of  different 

14 


314 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


rinks  and  circumstances,  including  many  of  much  property, 
informing  him  that  their  residences  were,  and  had  been  for 
years,  subject  to  annoyances  of  precisely  a  similar  character. 

M  So,  the  ghosts  and  the  hauntings  are  not  gone,  after  all ! 
We  have  turned  our  backs  on  them,  and,  in  the  pride  of  our 
philosophy,  have  refused  to  believe  in  them  ;  but  they  have 
persisted  in  remaining,  notwithstanding  ! 

"  These  singular  circumstances  being  at  various  times  related 
by  parties  acquainted  with  the  family  at  Willington,  I  was  cu- 
rious, on  a  tour  northward  some  time  ago,  to  pay  this  haunted 
house  a  visit,  and  to  solicit  a  night's  lodging  there.  Unfortu- 
nately the  family  was  absent,  on  a  visit  to  Mrs.  Procter's  rela- 
tives in  Carlisle,  so  that  my  principal  purpose  was  defeated  ; 
but  I  found  the  foreman  and  his  wife,  mentioned  in  the  forego- 
ing narrative,  living  just  by.  They  spoke  of  the  facts  above 
detailed  with  the  simple  earnestness  of  people  who  had  no 
doubts  whatever  on  the  subject.  The  noises  and  apparitions  in 
and  about  this  house  seemed  just  like  any  other  facts  connected 
with  it  —  as  matters  too  palpable  and  positive  to  be  questioned, 
any  more  than  that  the  house  actually  stood,  and  the  mill 
ground.  They  mentioned  to  me  the  circumstance  of  the  young 
lady,  as  above  stated,  who  took  up  her  lodging  in  their  house, 
because  she  would  no  longer  encounter  the  annoyances  of  the 
haunted  house  —  and  what  trouble  it  had  occasioned  the  family 
in  procuring  and  retaining  servants. 

"  The  wife  accompanied  me  into  the  house,  which  I  found  in 
charge  of  a  recently-married  servant  and  her  husband,  during 
the  absence  of  the  fajnily.  This  young  woman  —  who  had, 
previous  to  her  marriage,  lived  some  time  in  the  house — h,ad 
never  seen  anything,  and  therefore  had  no  fear.  I  was  shown 
over  the  house,  and  especially  into  the  room  on  the  third  story, 
the  main  haunt  of  the  unwelcome  visiters,  and  where  Dr.  Drury 
had  received  such  an  alarm.  This  room,  as  stated,  was  and 
had  been  for  some  time  abandoned  as  a  bed-room,  from  its  bad 
character,  and  was  occupied  as  a  lumber-room. 

"  At  Carlisle,  I  again  missed  Mr.  Procter :  he  had  returned 
to  Willington,  so  that  I  lost  the  opportunity  of  hearing  from 


HAUNTED  HOUSES. 


him  or  Mrs.  Procter  any  account  of  these  singular  matters.  I 
saw,  however,  various  members  of  his  wife's  family,  most  intel- 
ligent people,  of  the  highest  character  for  sound  and  practical 
sense,  and  they  were  unanimous  in  their  confirmation  of  the 
particulars  I  had  heard,  and  which  are  here  related. 

"One  of  Mrs.  Procter's  brothers  —  a  gentleman  in  middle 
life,  and  of  a  peculiarly  sensible,  sedate,  and  candid  disposition, 
a  person  apparently  most  unlikely  to  be  imposed  on  by  ficti- 
tious alarms  or  tricks  —  assured  me  that  he  had  himself,  on  a 
visit  there,  been  disturbed  by  the  strangest  noises ;  that  he  had 
resolved,  before  going,  that  if  any  such  noises  occurred,  he 
would  speak,  and  demand  of  the  invisible  actor  who  he  was,  and 
why  he  came  thither :  but  the  occasion  came,  and  he  found 
himself  unable  to  fulfil  his  intention.  As  he  lay  in  bed  one 
night,  he  heard  a  heavy  step  ascend  the  stairs  toward  his  room, 
and  some  one  striking,  as  it  were,  with  a  thick  stick  on  the 
banisters,  as  he  went  along.  It  came  to  his  door,  and  he  es- 
sayed to  call,  but  his  voice  died  in  his  throat.  He  then  sprang 
from  his  bed,  and,  opening  the  door,  found  no  one  there  —  but 
now  heard  the  same  heavy  steps  deliberately  descending,  though 
invisible,  the  steps  before  his  face,  and  accompanying  the  de- 
scent with  the  same  loud  blows  on  the  banisters. 

"  My  informant  now  proceeded  to  the  room  door  of  Mr. 
Procter,  who  he  found  had  also  heard  the  sounds,  and  who  now 
also  arose,  and  with  a  light  they  made  a  speedy  descent  below, 
and  a  thorough  search  there,  but  without  discovering  anything 
that  could  account  for  the  occurrence. 

"  The  two  young  ladies,  who,  on  a  visit  there,  had  also  been 
annoyed  by  this  invisible  agent,  gave  me  this  account  of  it : 
The  first  night,  as  they  were  sleeping  in  the  same  bed,  they 
felt  the  bed  lifted  up  beneath  them.  Of  course,  they  were  much 
alarmed.  They  feared  lest  some  one  had  concealed  himself 
there  for  the  purpose  of  robbery.  They  gave  an  alarm,  search 
was  made,  but  nothing  was  found.  Oil  another  night,  their  bed 
was  violently  shaken,  and  the  curtains  suddenly  hoisted  up*  all 

*  It  is  remarkable  that  this  hoisting  of  the  bed-curtains  is  similar  to  an  incident 
recorded  in  the  account  of  the  visit  of  Lord  Tyrone's  ghost  to  Lady  Beresford. 


316 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


round  to  the  very  tester,  as  if  pulled  by  cords,  and  as  rapidly 
let  down  again,  several  times !  Search  again  produced  no 
evidence  of  the  cause.  The  next,  they  had  the  curtains  totally 
removed  from  the  bed,  resolving  to  sleep  without  them,  as  they 
felt  as  though  evil  eyes  were  lurking  behind  them.  .The  con- 
sequences of  this,  however,  were  still  more  striking  and  terrific. 
The  following  night,  as  they  happened  to  awake,  and  the  cham- 
ber was  light  enough  (for  it  was  summer)  to  see  everything  in 
it,  they  both  saw  a  female  figure,  of  a  misty  substance,  and 
bluish-gray  hue,  come  out  of  the  wall  at  the  bed's  head,  and 
through  the  head-board,  in  a  horizontal  position,  and  lean  over 
them.  They  saw  it  most  distinctly  —  they  saw  it  as  a  female 
figure  come  out  of,  and  again  pass  into,  the  wall.  Their  terror 
became  intense,  and  one  of  the  sisters  from  that  night  refused 
to  sleep  any  more  in  the  house,  but  took  refuge  in  the  house 
of  the  foreman  during  her  stay ;  the  other  shifting  her  quarters 
to  another  part  of  the  house.  It  was  the  young  lady  who  slept 
at  the  foreman's  who  saw,  as  above  related,  the  singular  appa- 
rition of  the  luminous  figure  in  the  window,  along  with  the  fore- 
man and  his  wife. 

"  It  would  be  too  long  to  relate  all  the  forms  in  which  this 
nocturnal  disturbance  is  said  by  the  family  to  present  itself. 
When  a  figure  appears,  it  is  sometimes  that  of  a  man,  as  already 
described,  which  is  often  very  luminous,  and  passes  through  the 
walls  as  though  they  were  nothing.  This  male  figure  is  well 
known  to  the  neighbors  by  the  name  of  "  Old  Jeffrey !"  At 
other  times,  it  is  the  figure  of  a  lady,  also  in  gray  costume,  and 
as  described  by  Mr.  Drury.  She  is  sometimes  seen  sitting 
wrapped  in  a  sort  of  mantle,  with  her  head  depressed,  and  her 
hands  crossed  on  her  lap.  The  most  terrible  fact  is,  that  she  is 
without  eyes. 

"  To  hear  such  sober  and  superior  people  gravely  relate  to 
you  such  things,  gives  you  a  very  odd  feeling.  They  say  that 
the  noise  made  is  often  like  that  of  a  pavior  with  his  rammer 
thumping  on  the  floor.  At  other  times  it  is  coming  down  stairs, 
making  a  similar  loud  sound.  At  others  it  coughs,  sighs,  and 
groans,  like  a  person  in  distress ;  and,  again,  there  is  the  sound 


HAUNTED  HOUSES. 


317 


of  a  number  of  little  feet  pattering  on  the  floor  of  the  upper 
chamber,  where  the  apparition  has  more  particularly  exhibited 
itself,  and  which,  for  that  reason,  is  solely  used  as  a  lumber- 
room.  Here  these  little  footsteps  may  be  often  heard  as  if 
careering  a  child's  carriage  about,  which  in  bad  weather  is 
kept  up  there.  Sometimes,  again,  it  makes  the  most  horrible 
laughs.  Nor  does  it  always  confine  itself  to  the  night.  On  one 
occasion,  a  young  lady,  as  she  assured  me  herself,  opened  the 
door  in  answer  to  a  knock,  the  housemaid  being  absent,  and  a 
lady  in  fawn-colored  silk  entered,  and  proceeded  up  stairs.  As 
the  young  lady,  of  course,  supposed  it  a  neighbor  come  to  make 
a  morning  call  on  Mrs.  Procter,  she  followed  her  up  to  the 
drawing-room,  where,  however,  to  her  astonishment,  she  did 
not  find  her,  nor  was  anything  more  seen  of  her. 

"  Such  are  a  few  of  the  1  questionable  shapes'  in  which  this 
troublesome  guest  comes.  As  may  be  expected,  terror  of  it  is 
felt  by  the  neighboring  cottagers,  though  it  seems  to  confine  its 
malicious  disturbance  almost  solely  to  the  occupants  of  this  one 
house.  There  is  a  well,  however,  near  to  which  no  one  ven- 
tures after  it  is  dark,  because  it  has  been  seen  near  it. 

"  It  is  useless  to  attempt  to  give  any  opinion  respecting  the 
real  causes  of  these  strange  sounds  and  sights.  How  far  they 
may  be  real  or  imaginary,  how  far  they  may  be  explicable  by 
natural  causes  or  not  —  the  only  thing  which  we  have  here  to 
record  is,  the  very  singular  fact  of  a  most  respectable  and  intel- 
ligent family  having  for  many  years  been  continually  annoyed 
by  them,  as  well  as  their  visiters.  They  express  themselves  as 
most  anxious  to  obtain  any  clew  to  the  true  cause,  as  may  be 
seen  by  Mr.  Procter's  ready  acquiescence  in  the  experiment  of 
Mr.  Drury.  So  great  a  trouble  is  it  to  them,  that  they  have 
contemplated  the  necessity  of  quitting  the  house  altogether, 
though  it  would  create  great  inconvenience  as  regarded  busi- 
ness. And  it  only  remains  to  be  added  that  we  have  not  heard 
very  recently  whether  these  visitations  are  still  continued, 
though  we  have  a  letter  of  Mr.  Procter's  to  a  friend  of  ours, 
dated  September,  1844,  in  which  he  says  :  '  Disturbances  have 
for  a  length  of  time  been  only  very  unfrequent,  which  is  a  com- 


318 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


fort,  as  the  elder  children  are  getting  old  enough  (about  nine 
or  ten  years)  to  be  more  injuriously  affected  by  anything  of  the 
sort.' 

**  Over  these  facts  let  the  philosophers  ponder,  and  if  any  of 
them  be  powerful  enough  to  exorcise  '  Old  Jeffrey,'  or  the 
bluish-gray  and  misty  lady,  we  are  sure  that  Mr.  Joseph  Proc- 
ter will  hold  himself  deeply  indebted  to  them.  We  have  lately 
heard  that  Mr.  Procter  has  discovered  an  old  book,  which 
makes  it  appear  that  the  very  same  '  hauntings'  took  place  in 
an  old  house,  on  the  very  same  spot,  at  least  two  hundred 
years  ago." 

To  the  above  information,  furnished  by  Mr.  Howitt,  I  have 
to  subjoin  that  the  family  of  Mr.  Procter  are  now  quitting  the 
house,  which  he  intends  to  divide  into  small  tenements  for  the 
work-people.  A  friend  of  mine  who  lately  visited  Willington, 
and  who  went  over  the  house  with  Mr.  Procter,  assures  me  that 
the  annoyances  still  continue,  though  less  frequent  than  for- 
merly. Mr.  Procter  informed  her  that  the  female  figure  gen- 
erally appeared  in  a  shroud,  and  that  it  had  been  seen  in  that 
guise  by  one  of  the  family  only  a  few  days  before.  A  wish 
being  expressed  by  a  gentleman  visiting  Mr.  Procter  that  some 
natural  explanation  of  these  perplexing  circumstances  might  be 
discovered,  the  latter  declared  his  entire  conviction,  founded 
on  an  experience  of  fifteen  years,  that  no  such  elucidation  was 
possible. 


SPECTRAL  LIGHTS,  ETC. 


319 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

SPECTRAL  LIGHTS,  AND  APPARITIONS  ATTACHED  TO  CERTAIN 
FAMILIES. 

In  commencing  another  chapter,  I  take  the  opportunity  of 
repeating  what  I  have  said  before,  viz.,  that  in  treating  of  these 
phenomena,  I  find  it  most  convenient  to  assume  what  I  myself 
believe  —  that  they  are  to  be  explained  by  the  existence  and 
appearance  of  what  are  called  ghosts  ;  but  in  so  doing,  I  am 
not  presuming  to  settle  the  question  :  if  any  one  will  examine 
into  the  facts  and  furnish  a  better  explanation  of  them,  I  shall 
be  ready  to  receive  it. 

In  the  meantime,  assuming  this  hypothesis,  there  is  one  phe- 
nomenon frequently  attending  their  appearance,  which  has 
given  rise  to  a  great  deal  of  thoughtless  ridicule,  but  which,  in 
the  present  state  of  science,  merits  very  particular  attention. 
Grose,  whom  Dr.  Hibbert  quotes  with  particular  satisfaction, 
says  :  "  I  can  not  learn  that  ghosts  carry  tapers  in  their  hands, 
as  they  are  sometimes  depicted  ;  though  the  room  in  which  they 
appear,  even  when  without  fire  or  candle,  is  frequently  said  to 
be  as  light  as  day." 

Most  persons  will  have  heard  of  this  peculiarity  attending 
the  appearance  of  ghosts.  In  the  case  of  Professor  Dorrien's 
apparition,  mentioned  in  a  former  chapter,  Professor  Oeder 
saw  it,  when  there  was  no  light  in  the  room,  by  a  flame  which 
proceeded  from  itself.  When  he  had  the  room  lighted,  he  saw 
it  no  longer,  the  light  of  the  lamp  rendering  invisible  the  more 
delicate  phosphorescent? light  of  the  spectre  :  just  as  the  bright 
glare  of  the  sun  veils  the  feebler  lustre  of  the  stars,  and  obscures 
to  our  senses  many  chemical  lights  which  are  very  perceptible 
in  darkness.  Hence  the  notion,  so  available  to  those  who  sat- 
isfy themselves  with  scoffing  without  inquiring,  that  broad  day- 


320 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


light  banishes  apparitions,  and  that  the  belief  in  them  is  merely 
the  offspring  of  physical  as  well  as  moral  darkness. 

I  meet  with  innumerable  cases  in  which  this  phosphorescent 
light  is  one  of  the  accompaniments,  the  flame  sometimes  pro- 
ceeding visibly  from  the  figure  ;  while  in  others,  the  room  ap- 
peared pervaded  with  light,  without  its  seeming  to  issue  from 
any  particular  object. 

I  remember  a  case  of  the  servants  in  a  country-house,  in 
Aberdeenshire,  hearing  the  door-bell  ring  after  their  mistress 
was  gone  to  bed  ;  on  coming  up  to  open  it,  they  saw  through  a 
window  that  looked  into  a  hall  that  it  was  quite  light,  and  that 

their  master,  Mr.  F  ,  who  was  at  the  time  absent  from  home, 

was  there  in  his  travelling  dress.  They  ran  to  tell  their  mis- 
tress what  they  had  seen ;  but  when  they  returned,  all  was 
dark,  and  there  was  nothing  unusual  to  be  discovered.  That 
night  Mr.  F  died  at  sea,  on  his  voyage  to  London. 

A  gentleman,  some  time  ago,  awoke  in  the  middle  of  a  dark 
winter's  night,  and  perceived  that  his  room  was  as  light  as  if  it 
were  day.  He  awoke  his  wife  and  mentioned  the  circumstance, 
saying  he  could  not  help  apprehending  that  some  misfortune 
had  occurred  to  his  fishing-boats,  which  had  put  to  sea.  The 
boats  were  lost  that  night. 

Only  last  year,  there  was  a  very  curious  circumstance  hap- 
pened in  the  south  of  England,  in  which  these  lights  were  seen. 
1  give  the  account  literally  as  I  extracted  it  from  the  newspa 
per,  and  also  the  answer  of  the  editor  to  my  farther  inquiries- 
I  know  nothing  more  of  this  story  ;  but  it  is  singularly  in  keep- 
ing with  others  proceeding  from  different  quarters. 

"A  Ghost  at  Bristol.  —  We  have  this  week  a  ghost-story 
to  relate.  Yes,  a  ghost-story  ;  a  real  ghost-story,  and  a  ghost- 
story  without,  as  yet,  any  clew  to  its  elucidation.  After  the 
dissolution  of  the  Calendars,  their  ancient  residence,  adjoining 
and  almost  forming  a  part  of  All-Saint's  church,  Bristol,  was 
converted  into  a  vicarage-house,  and  it  is  still  called  by  that 
name,  though  the  incumbents  have  for  many  years  ceased  to 
reside  there.  The  present  occupants  are  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Jones, 
the  sexton  and  sextoness  of  the  church,  and  one  or  two  lodgers ; 


SPECTRAL  LIGHTS,  ETC. 


321 


and  it  is  to  the  former  and  their  servant-maid  that  the  .jt.ange 
visiter  has  made  his  appearance,  causing  such  t/.rror  by  his 
nightly  calls,  that  all  three  have  determined  on  quiiting  the 
premises,  if  indeed  they  have  not  already  carried  their  resolu- 
tion into  effect.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Jones's  description  of  the  dis- 
turbance as  given  to  the  landlord,  on  whom  they  called  in  great 
consternation,  is  as  distinct  as  any  ghost-story  could  be.  The 
nocturnal  visiter  is  heard  walking  about  the  house  when  the 
inhabitants  are  in  bed ;  and  Mr.  Jones,  who  is  a  man  of  by  no 
means  nervous  constitution,  declares  he  has  several  times  seen 
a  light  flickering  on  one  of  the  walls.  Mrs.  Jones  is  equally 
certain  that  she  has  heard  a  man  with  creaking  shoes  walking 
in  the  bed-room  above  her  own,  when  no  man  was  on  the  prem- 
ises (or  at  least  ought  to  be),  and  "  was  nearly  killed  with  the 
fright."  To  the  servant-maid,  however,  was  vouchsafed  the 
unenvied  honor  of  seeing  this  restless  night-visiter  ;  she  declares 
she  has  repeatedly  had  her  bed-room  door  unbolted  at  night 
between  the  hours  of  twelve  and  two  o'cIock  —  the  period 
when  such  beings  usually  make  their  promenades  —  by  some- 
thing in  human  semblance ;  she  can  not  particularize  his  dress, 
but  describes  it  as  something  antique,  and  of  a  fashion  "  lang 
syne  gane,"  and  to  some  extent  corresponding  to  that  of  the 
ancient  Calendars,  the  former  inhabitants  of  the  house.  She 
further^ays  he  is  a  "  whiskered  gentleman"  (we  give  her  own 
words)  —  which  whiskered  gentleman  has  gone  the  length  of 
shaking  her  bed,  and  she  believes  would  have  shaken  herself 
also,  but  that  she  invariably  puts  her  head  under  the  clothes 
when  she  sees  him  approach.  Mrs.  Jones  declares  she  believes 
in  the  appearance  of  the  whiskered  gentleman,  and  she  had 
made  up  her  mind,  the  night  before  she  called  on  her  landlord, 
to  leap  out  of  the  window  (and  it  is  not  a  trifle  that  will  make 
people  leap  out  of  the  windows)  as  soon  as  he  entered  the 
room.  The  effect  of  the  *  flickering  light'  on  Mr.  Jones  was 
quite  terrific,  causing  excessive  trembling,  and  the  complete 
doubling  up  of  his  whole  body  into  a  round  ball,  like." — Br  istol 
Times. 


14* 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


"  Bristol  Times  Office,  June  3,  1846. 
"  Madam  :  In  reply  to  your  inquiries  respecting  the  ghost- 
story,  I  have  to  assure  you  that  the  whole  affair  remains  wrap- 
ped in  the  same  mystery  as  when  chronicled  in  the  pages  of  the 
Bristol  Times. 

"  I  am,  madam,  yours  obediently, 

"The  Editor." 

I  subsequently  wrote  to  Mrs.  Jones,  who  I  found  was  not  a 
very  dexterous  scribe ;  but  she  confirmed  the  above  account — 

adding,  however,  that  the  Rev.  Mr.  ,  the  clergyman  of  the 

parish,  said  I  had  better  write  to  him  about  it,  and  that  he  does 
not  believe  in  such  things.  Of  course  he  does  not,  and  it 
would  have  been  useless  to  have  asked  his  opinion. 

There  never  was,  perhaps,  a  more  fearless  human  being 
than  Madame  Gottfried,  the  empoisonneuse  of  Bremen  ;  at  least, 
she  felt  no  remorse  —  she  feared  nothing  but  discovery  ;  and 
yet,  when  after  years  of  successful  crime  she  was  at  length 
arrested,  she  related  that  soon  after  the  death  of  her  first  hus- 
band, Miltenburg,  whom  she  had  poisoned,  as  she  was  stand- 
ing, in  the  dusk  of  the  evening,  in  her  drawing-room,  she  sud- 
denly saw  a  bright  light  hovering  at  no  great  distance  above 
the  floor,  which  advanced  toward  her  bed-room  door  and  then 
disappeared.  This  phenomenon  occurred  on  three  successive 
evenings.  On  another  occasion,  she  saw  a  shadowy"appear- 
ance  hovering  near  her  —  "  Ach  !  denke  ich,  das  ist  Miltenburg, 
seine  erscheinung !"  —  (Alas!  thought  I,  that  is  the  ghost  of 
Miltenburg !)    Yet  did  not  this  withhold  her  murderous  hand. 

The  lady  who  met  with  the  curious  adventure  in  Peters- 
burgh,  mentioned  in  a  former  chapter,  had  no  light  in  her  room  ; 
yet  she  saw  the  watch  distinctly  by  the  old  woman's  light, 
though  of  what  nature  it  was,  she  does  not  know.  Of  the  lights 
seen  over  graves,  familiarly  called  "  corpse-candles,"  I  have 
spoken  elsewhere  —  as  also  of  the  luminous  form  perceived  by 
Rilling  in  the  garden  at  Colmar,  as  mentioned  by  Baron  von 
Reichenbach.  Most  people  have  heard  the  story  of  the  Ra- 
diant Boy  seen  by  Lord  Castlereagh  —  an  apparition  which  the 


SPECTRAL  LIGHTS,  ETC. 


3:2.'} 


owner  of  the  castle  admitted  to  have  been  visible  to  many 
others.  Dr.  Kerner  mentions  a  similar  fact,  wherein  an  advo- 
cate and  his  wife  were  awakened  by  a  noise  and  a  light,  and 
saw  a  beautiful  child  enveloped  by  the  sort  of  glory  that  is  seen 
surrounding  the  heads  of  saints.  It  disappeared,  and  they 
never  had  a  repetition  of  the  phenomenon,  which  they  after- 
ward heard  was  believed  to  recur  every  seven  years  in  that 
house,  and  to  be  connected  with  the  cruel  murder  of  a  child  by 
its  mother. 

To  these  instances  I  will  add  an  account  of  the  ghost  seen  in 

C          castle,  copied  from  the  handwriting  of  C  M  

H          in  a  book  of  manuscript  extracts,  dated  C   castle, 

December  22,  1S24,  and  furnished  to  me  by  a  friend  of  the 
family  :  — 

"  In  order  to  introduce  my  readers  to  the  haunted  room,  I 
will  mention  that  it  forms  part  of  the  old  house,  with  windows 
looking  into  the  court,  which  in  early  times  was  deemed  a 
necessary  security  against  an  enemy.    It  adjoins  a  tower  built 

by  the  Romans  for  defence ;  for  C  was  properly  more  a 

border  tower  than  a  castle  of  any  consideration.  There  is  a 
winding  staircase  in  this  tower,  and  the  walls  are  from  eight  to 
ten  feet  thick. 

"  When  the  times  became  more  peaceable,  our  ancestors  en- 
larged the  arrow-slit  windows,  and  added  to  that  part  of  the 
building  which  looks  toward  the  river  Eden  ;  the  view  of 
which,  with  its  beautiful  banks,  we  now  enjoy.  But  many  ad- 
ditions and  alterations  have  been  made  since  that. 

"  To  return  to  the  room  in  question,  I  must  observe  that  it  is 
by  no  means  remote  or  solitary,  being  surrounded  on  all  sides 
by  chambers  that  are  constantly  inhabited.  It  is  accessible  by 
a  passage  cut  through  a  wall  eight  feet  in  thickness,  and  its 
dimensions  are  twenty-one  by  eighteen.  One  side  of  the  wain- 
scoting is  covered  with  tapestry ;  the  remainder  is  decorated 
with  old  family-pictures,  and  some  ancient  pieces  of  embroidery, 
probably  the  handiwork  of  nuns.  Over  a  press,  which  has 
doors  of  Venetian  glass,  is  an  ancient  oaken  figure,  with  a  bat- 
tle-axe in  his  hand,  which  was  one  of  those  formerly  placed  on 


324 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


the  walls  of  the  city  of  Carlisle,  to  represent  guards.  There 
used  to  be,  also,  an  old-fashioned  bed  and  some  dark  furniture 
in  this  room ;  but,  so  many  were  the  complaints  of  those  who 
slept  there,  that  1  was  induced  to  replace  some  of  these  articles 
of  furniture  by  more  modern  ones,  in  the  hope  of  removing  a 
certain  air  of  gloom,  which  I  thought  might  have  given  rise  to 
the  unaccountable  reports  of  apparitions  and  extraordinary 
noises  which  were  constantly  reaching  us.  But  I  regret  to  say 
I  did  not  succeed  in  banishing  the  nocturnal  visiter,  which  still 
continues  to  disturb  our  friends. 

"  I  shall  pass  over  numerous  instances,  and  select  one  as  being 
especially  remarkable",  from  the  circumstance  of  the  apparition 
having  been  seen  by  a  clergyman  well  known  and  highly 
respected  in  this  county,  who,  not  six  weeks  ago,  repeated  the 
circumstances  to  a  company  of  twenty  persons,  among  whom 
were  some  who  had  previously  been  entire  disbelievers  in  such 
appearances. 

"  The  best  way  of  giving  you  these  particulars,  will  be  by 
subjoining  an  extract  from  my  journal,  entered  at  the  time  the 
event  occurred. 

"  Sept.  8,  1803.  —  Among  other  guests  invited  to  C  cas- 
tle, came  the  Rev.  Henry  A  ,  of  Redburgh,  and  rector  of 

Greystoke,  with  Mrs.  A  ,  his  wife,  who  was  a  Miss  S  y 

of  Ulverstone.  According  to  previous  arrangements,  they  were 
to  have  remained  with  us  for  some  days  ;  but  their  visit  was  cut 
short  in  a  very  unexpected  manner.  On  the  morning  after 
their  arrival,  we  were  all  assembled  at  breakfast,  when  a  chaise 
and  four  dashed  up  to  the  door  in  such  haste  that  it  knocked 
down  part  of  the  fence  of  my  flower-garden.  Our  curiosity 
was,  of  course,  awakened  to  know  who  could  be  arriving  at  so 
early  an  hour ;  when,  happening  to  turn  my  eyes  toward  Mr. 

A  ,  I  observed  that  he  appeared  extremely  agitated.    '  It 

is  our  carriage  !'  said  he  ;  'I  am  very  sorry,  but  we  must  abso- 
lutely leave  you  this  morning/ 

"  We  naturally  felt  and  expressed  considerable  surprise,  as 
well  as  regret  at  this  unexpected  departure ;  representing  that 
we  hnd  invited  Colonel  and  Mrs.  S  ,  some  friends  whom 


SPECTRAL  LIGHTS,  ETC. 


325 


Mr.  A  particularly  desired  to  meet,  to  dine  with  us  on  that 

day.  Our  expostulations,  however,  were  vain ;  the  breakfast 
was  no  sooner  over  than  they  departed,  leaving  us  in  conster- 
nation to  conjecture  what  could  possibly  have  occasioned  so 
sudden  an  alteration  in  their  arrangements.  I  really  felt  quite 
uneasy  lest  anything  should  have  given  them  offence  ;  and  we 
reviewed  all  the  occurrences  of  the  preceding  evening  in  order 
to  discover,  if  offence  there  was,  whence  it  had  arisen.  But  our 
pains  were  vain ;  and  after  talking  a  great  deal  about  it  for 
some  days,  other  circumstances  banished  it  from  our  minds. 

"  It  was  not  till  we  some  time  afterward  visited  the  part  of 

the  country  in  which  Mr.  A  resides,  that  we  learned  the 

real  cause  of  his  sudden  departure  from  C  .    The  relation 

of  the  fact,  as  it  here  follows,  is  in  his  own  words  :  — 

"  Soon  after  we  went  to  bed,  we  fell  asleep  :  it  might  have 
been  between  one  and  two  in  the  morning  when  I  awoke.  I 
observed  that  the  fire  was  totally  extinguished ;  but  although 
that  was  the  case,  and  we  had  no  light,  I  saw  a  glimmer  in  the 
centre  of  the  room,  which  suddenly  increased  to  a  bright  flame. 
I  looked  out,  apprehending  that  something  had  caught  fire, 
when,  to  my  amazement,  I  beheld  a  beautiful  boy,  clothed  in 
white,  with  bright  locks,  resembling  gold,  standing  by  my  bed- 
side, in  which  position  he  remained  some  minutes,  fixing  his 
eyes  upon  me  with  a  mild  and  benevolent  expression.  He  then 
glided  gently  away  toward  the  side  of  the  chimney,  where  it  is 
obvious  there  is  no  possible  egress,  and  entirely  disappeared.  I 
found  myself  again  in  total  darkness,  and  all  remained  quiet 
until  the  usual  hour  of  rising.  I  declare  this  to  be  a  true 
account  of  what  I  saw  at  C  castle,  upon  my  word  as  a  cler- 
gyman." 

I  am  acquainted  with  some  of  the  family,  and  with  several 

of  the  friends  of  Mr.  A  ,  who  is  still  alive,  though  now  an 

old  man,  and  I  can  most  positively  assert  that  his  own  convic- 
tion, with  regard  to  the  nature  of  this  appearance,  has  remained 
ever  unshaken.  The  circumstance  made  a  lasting  impression 
upon  his  mind,  and  he  never  willingly  speaks  of  it ;  but  when 
he  does,  it  is  always  with  the  greatest  seriousness,  and  he  never 


326 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


shrinks  from  avowing  his  belief,  that  what  he  saw  admits  of  no 
other  interpretation  than  the  one  he  then  put  upon  it. 

Now,  let  us  see  whether  in  this  department  of  the  phenome- 
non of  ghost-seeing,  namely,  the  lights  that  frequently  accom- 
pany the  apparitions,  there  is  anything  so  worthy  of  ridicule  as 
Grose  and  other  such  commentators  seem  to  think. 

Of  God,  the  uncreated,  we  know  nothing ;  but  the  created 
spirit,  man,  we  can  not  conceive  of  independent  of  some  organ- 
ism or  organ,  however  different  that  organ  may  be  to  those 
which  form  our  means  of  apprehension  and  communication  at 
present.  This  organ,  we  may  suppose  to  be  that  pervading 
ether  which  is  now  the  germ  of  what  St.  Paul  calls  the  spiritual 
body,  the  astral  spirit  of  the  mystics,  the  nerve-spirit  of  the 
clear-seers  ;  the  fundamental  body,  of  which  the  external  fleshly 
body  is  but  the  copy  and  husk  —  an  organ  comprehending  all 
those  distinct  ones  which  we  now  possess  in  the  one  universal, 
or,  as  some  of  the  German  physiologists  call  it,  the  central 
sense,  of  which  we  occasionally  obtain  some  glimpses  in  som- 
nambulism, and  in  other  peculiar  states  of  nervous  derangement; 
especially  where  the  ordinary  senses  of  sight,  hearing,  feeling, 
&c.,  are  in  abeyance ;  an  effect  which  Dr.  Ennemoser  considers  to 
be  produced  by  a  change  of  polarity,  the  external  periphery  of 
the  nerves  taking  on  a  negative  state  ;  and  which  Dr.  Passavent 
describes  as  the  ietreating  of  the  ether  from  the  external  to  the 
internal,  so  that  the  nerves  no  longer  receive  impressions,  or 
convey  information  to  the  brain  ;  a  condition  which  may  be  pro- 
duced by  various  causes,  as  excess  of  excitement,  great  eleva- 
tion of  the  spirit,  as  we  see  in  the  ecstatics  and  martyrs,  over- 
irritation  producing  consequent  exhaustion  ;  and  also  artificially, 
by  certain  manipulations,  narcotics,  and  other  influences.  All 
somnambules  of  the  highest  order — and  when  I  make  use  of 
this  expression,  I  repeat  that  i.  do  not  allude  to  the  subjects  of 
mesmeric  experiments,  but  to  those  extraordinary  cases  of  dis- 
ease, the  particulars  of  which*  have  been  recorded  by  various 
continental  physicians  of  eminence  —  all  persons  in  that  condi- 
tion describe  themselves  as  hearing  and  seeing,  not  by  their 
ordinary  organs,  but  by  some  means  the  idea  of  which  they  can 


SPECTRAL  LIGHTS,  ETC. 


327 


not  convey  further  than  that  they  are  pervaded  by  light,  and 
that  this  is  not  the  ordinary  physical  light  is  evident,  inasmuch 
as  they  generally  see  best  in  the  dark,  a  remarkable  instance  of 
which  I  myself  witnessed. 

I  never  had  the  slightest  idea  of  this  internal  light,  till,  in  the 
way  of  experiment,  I  inhaled  the  sulphuric  ether ;  but  I  am 
now  very  well  able  to  conceive  it :  for,  after  first  feeling  an 
agreeable  warmth  pervading  my  limbs,  my  next  sensation  was 
to  find  myself,  I  can  not  say  in  this  heavenly  light,  for  the  light 
was  in  me —  I  was  pervaded  by  it :  it  was  not  perceived  by  my 
eyes,  which  were  closed,  but  perceived  internally,  I  can  not  tell 
how.  Of  what  nature  this  heavenly  light  was  —  and  I  can  not 
forbear  calling  it  heavenly,  for  it  was  like  nothing  on  earth  —  I 
know  not,  nor  how  far  it  may  be  related  to  those  luminous  ema- 
nations occasionally  seen  around  ecstatics,  saints,  martyrs,  and. 
dying  persons  ;  or  to  the  flames  seen  by  somnambules  issuing 
from  various  objects,  or  to  those  observed  by  Von  Reichenbach's 
patients  proceeding  from  the  ends  of  the  fingers,  &c.  But  at 
all  events,  since  the  process  which  maintains  life  is  of  the  nature 
of  combustion,  we  have  no  reason  to  be  amazed  at  the  presence 
of  luminous  emanations ;  and  as  we  are  the  subjects  of  various 
electrical  phenomena,  nobody  is  surprised  when,  on  combing 
their  hair  or  pulling  off  their  silk-stockings,  they  hear  a  crack- 
ling noise,  or  even  see  sparks. 

Light,  in  short,  is  a  phenomenon  which  seems  connected  with 
all  forms  of  life ;  and  I  need  not  here  refer  to  that  emitted  by 
glow-worms,  fire-flies,  and  those  marine  animals  which  illumi- 
nate the  sea.  The  eyes  also  of  many  animals  shine  with  a  light 
which  is  not  merely  a  reflected  one  —  as  has  been  ascertained 
by  Rengger,  a  German  naturalist,  who  found  himself  able  to 
distinguish  objects  in  the  most  profound  darkness,  by  the  flaming 
eyes  of  a  South  American  monkey. 

"  The  seeing  of  a  clear-seer,"  says  Dr.  Passavent,  "  may  be 
called  a  solar  seeing,  for  he  lights  and  inter-penetrates  his  ob- 
ject with  his  own  organic  light,  viz.,  his  nervous  ether,  which 
becomes  the  organ  of  the  spirit ;"  and  under  certain  circum- 
stances this  organic  light  becomes  visible,  as  in  those  above 


323 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


alluded  to.  Persons  recovering  from  deep  swoons  and  trances, 
frequently  describe  themselves  as  having  been  in  this  region 
of  light  —  this  light  of  the  spirit,  if  I  may  so  call  it — this  pal- 
ace of  light,  in  which  it  dwells,  which  will  hereafter  be  its  proper 
light ;  for  the  physical  or  solar  light,  which  serves  us  while  in 
the  flesh,  will  be  no  longer  needed,  when  out  of  it,  nor  proba- 
bly be  perceived  by  the  spirit,  which  will  then,  I  repeat,  be  a 
light  to  itself :  and  as  this  organic  light  —  this  germ  of  our  future 
spiritual  body  —  occasionally  becomes  partially  visible  now, 
there  can  not,  I  think,  be  any  great  difficulty  in  conceiving  that 
it  may,  under  given  circumstances,  be  so  hereafter. 

The  use  of  the  word  light,  in  the  Scriptures,  must  not  be 
received  in  a  purely  symbolical  sense.  We  shall  dwell  in  light, 
or  we  shall  dwell  in  darkness,  in  proportion  as  we  have  shaken 
off  the  bonds  that  chain  us  to  the  earth  ;  according,  in  short,  to 
our  moral  state,  we  shall  be  pure  and  bright,  or  impure  and 
dark. 

Monsieur  Arago  mentions,  in  his  treatise  on  lightning  and 
the  electrical  fluid,  that  all  men  are  not  equally  susceptible  of 
it,  and  that  there  are  different  degrees  of  receptivity,  verging 
from  total  insensibility  to  the  extreme  opposite ;  and  he  also 
remarks  that  animals  are  more  susceptible  to  it  than  men.  He 
says  the  fluid  will  pass  through  a  chain  of  persons,  of  whom 
perhaps  one  (though  forming  only  the  second  link)  will  be 
wholly  insensible  of  the  shock.  Such  persons  would  be  rarely 
struck  by  lightning,  while  another  would  be  in  as  great  danger 
from  a  flash  as  if  he  were  made  of  metal.  Thus  it  is  not  only 
the  situation  of  a  man,  during  a  storm,  but  also  his  physical 
constitution,  that  regulates  the  amount  of  his  peril.  The  horse 
and  the  dog  are  particularly  susceptible. 

Now,  this  varying  susceptibility  is  analogous  to,  if  not  the 
very  same,  that  causes  the  varying  susceptibility  to-  such  phe- 
nomena as  I  am  treating  of;  and,  accordingly,  we  know  that  in 
all  times,  horses  and  dogs  have  been  reputed  to  have  the  fac- 
ulty of  seeing  spirits  :  and  when  persons  who  have  the  second 
sight  see  a  vision,  these  animals,  if  in  contact  with  them,  per- 
ceive it  also,  and  frequently  evince  symptoms  of  great  terror. 


SPECTRAL  LIGHTS,  ETC. 


329 


We  also  here  find  the  explanation  of  another  mystery,  namely, 
what  the  Germans  call  ansteckung,  and  the  English  (skeptics 
when  alluding  to  these  phenomena)  contagion  —  meaning  sim- 
ply contagious  fear  ;  but,  as  when  several  persons  form  a  chain, 
the  shock  from  an  electrical  machine  will  pass  through  the  whole 
of  them  —  so,  if  one  person  is  in  such  a  state  as  to  become  sen- 
sible of  an  apparition  or  some  similar  phenomenon,  he  may  be 
able  to  communicate  that  power  to  another  ;  and  thus  has  arisen 
the  conviction  among  the  highlanders,  that  a  seer,  by  touching 
a  person  near  him,  enables  him  frequently  to  participate  in  his 
vision. 

A  little  girl,  in  humble  life,  called  Mary  Delves,  of  a  highly 
nervous  temperament,  has  been  frequently  punished  for  saying 
that  the  cat  was  on  fire,  and  that  she  saw  flames  issuing  from 
various  persons  and  objects. 

With  regard  to  the  perplexing  subject  of  corpse-lights,  there 
would  be  little  difficulty  attending  it  if  they  always  remained 
stationary  over  the  graves ;  but  it  seems  very  well  established 
that  that  is  not  the  case.  There  are  numerous  stories,  proceed- 
ing from  very  respectable  quarters,  proving  the  contrary  ;  and 
I  have  heard  two  from  a  dignitary  of  the  church,  born  in  Wales, 
which  I  will  relate  : — 

A  female  relation  of  his  had  occasion  to  go  to  Aberystwith, 
which  was  about  twenty  miles  from  her  home,  on  horseback  ; 
and  she  started  at  a  very  early  hour  for  that  purpose,  with  her 
father's  servant.  When  they  had  nearly  reached  the  half-way, 
fearing  the  man  might  be  wanted  at  home,  she  bade  him  return, 
as  she  was  approaching  the  spot  where  the  servant  of  the  lady 
she  was  going  to  visit  was  to  meet  her,  in  order  to  escort  her 
the  other  half. 

The  man  had  not  long  left  her,  when  she  saw  a  light  com- 
ing toward  her,  the  nature  of  which  she  suspected.  It  moved, 
according  to  her  description,  steadily  on,  about  three  feet 
from  the  ground.  Somewhat  awestruck,  she  turned  her  horse 
out  of  the  bridle-road,  along  which  it  was  coming,  intending 
to  wait  till  it  had  passed  ;  but,  to  her  dismay,  just  as  it  came 
opposite  to  her,  it  stopped,  and  there  remained  perfectly  fixed 


330 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


for  nearly  half  an  hour,  at  the  end  of  which  period  it  moved  on 
as  before. 

The  servant  presently  came  up,  and  she  proceeded  to  the 
house  of  her  friend,  where  she  related  what  she  had  seen.  A 
few  days  afterward,  the  very  servant  who  came  to  meet  her  was 
taken  ill  and  died  :  his  body  was  carried  along  that  road ;  and, 
at  the  very  spot  where  the  light  had  paused,  an  accident  oc- 
curred, which  caused  a  delay  of  half  an  hour. 

The  other  story  was  as  follows :  A  servant  in  the  family  of 
Lady  Davis,  my  informant's  aunt,  had  occasion  to  start  early 
for  market.  Being  in  the  kitchen,  about  three  o'clock  in  the 
•  morning,  taking  his  breakfast  alone,  when  everybody  else  was 
in  bed,  he  was  surprised  at  hearing  a  sound  of  heavy  feet  on 
the  stairs  above ;  and,  opening  the  door  to  see  who  it  could  be, 
he  was  struck  with  alarm  at  perceiving  a  great  light,  much 
brighter  than  could  have  been  shed  by  a  candle,  at  the  same 
time  that  he  heard  a  violent  thump,  as  if  some  very  heavy  body 
had  hit  the  clock,  which  stood  on  the  landing.  Aware  of  the 
nature  of  the  light,  the  man  did  not  await  its  further  descent, 
but  rushed  out  of  the  house  —  whence  he  presently  saw  it  issue 
from  the  front  door,  and  proceed  on  its  way  to  the  churchyard. 

As  his  mistress,  Lady  Davis,  was  at  that  period  in  her  bed, 
ill,  he  made  no  doubt  that  her  death  impended  ;  and  when  he 
returned  from  the  market  at  night,  his  first  question  was,  whether 
she  was  yet  alive  :  and  though  he  was  informed  she  was  better, 
he  declared  his  conviction  that  she  would  die,  alleging  as  his 
reason  what  he  had  seen  in  the  morning  —  a  narration  which 
led  everybody  else  to  the  same  conclusion. 

The  lady,  however,  recovered ;  but,  within  a  fortnight,  an- 
other member  of  the  family  died  :  and  as  his  coffin  was  brought 
down  the  stairs,  the  bearers  ran  it  violently  against  the  clock  — 
upon  which  the  man  instantly  exclaimed,  "  That  is  the  very 
noise  I  heard  !*' 

I  could  relate  numerous  stories  wherein  the  appearance  of  a 
ghost  was  accompanied  by  a  light ;  but  as  there  is  nothing  that 
distinguishes  them  from  those  above  mentioned,  I  will  not  dilate 
further  on  this  branch  of  the  subject,  on  which,  perhaps,  I  have 


SPECTRAL  LIGHTS,  ETC. 


33J 


said  enough  to  suggest  to  the  minds  of  my  readers  that,  although 
we  know  little  how  such  things  are,  we  do  know  enough  of 
analogous  phenomena  to  enable  us  to  believe,  at  least,  their 
possibility. 

I  confess  I  find  much  less  difficulty  in  conceiving  the  exist- 
ence of  such  facts  as  those  above  described,  than  those  of  another 
class,  of  which  we  meet  with  occasional  instances. 

For  example,  a  gentleman  of  fortune  and  station,  in  Ireland, 
was  one  day  walking  along  the  road,  when  he  met  a  very  old 
man,  apparently  a  peasant,  though  well  dressed,  and  looking  as 
if  he  had  on  his  Sunday  habiliments.  His  great  age  attracted 
the  gentleman's  attention  the  more,  that  he  could  not  help  won- 
dering at  the  alertness  of  his  movements,  and  the  ease  with 
which  he  was  ascending  the  hill.  He  consequently  accosted 
him,  inquiring  his  name  and  residence ;  and  was  answered  that 
his  name  was  Kirkpatrick,  and  that  he  lived  at  a  cottage,  which 
he  pointed  out.  Whereupon  the  gentleman  expressed  his  sur- 
prise that  he  should  be  unknown  to  him,  since  he  fancied  he 
had  been  acquainted  with  every  man  on  his  estate.  "  It  is 
odd  you  have  never  seen  me  before,"  returned  the  old  man, 
"  for  I  walk  here  every  day." 

"  How  old  are  you  ?"  asked  the  gentleman. 

"I  am  one  hundred  and  five,"  answered  the  other;  "and 
have  been  here  all  my  life." 

After  a  few  more  words,  they  parted  ;  and  the  gentleman, 
proceeding  toward  some  laborers  in  a  neighboring  field,  in- 
quired if  they  knew  an  old  man  of  the  name  of  Kirkpatrick. 
They  did  not ;  but  on  addressing  the  question  to  some  older 
tenants,  they  said,  "  Oh,  yes ;"  they  had  known  him,  and  had 
been  at  his  funeral ;  he  had  lived  at  the  cottage  on  the  hill,  but 
had  been  dead  twenty  years. 

"  How  old  was  he  when  he  died  ?"  inquired  the  gentleman, 
much  amazed.  "  He  was  eighty-five,"  said  they  :  so  that  the 
old  man  gave  the  age  that  he  would  have  reached  had  he  sur- 
vived to  the  period  of  this  rencontre. 

This  curious  incident  is  furnished  by  the  gentleman  himself 
and  all'he  can  say  is,  that  it  certainly  occurred,  and  that  he  is 


332 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


quite  unable  to  explain  it,  He  was  in  perfect  health  at  the 
time,  and  had  never  heard  of  this  man  in  his  life,  who  had  been 
dead  several  years  before  the  estate  came  into  his  possession. 

The  following  is  another  curious  story.  The  original  will  be 
found  in  the  register  of  the  church  named,  from  which  it  has 
been  copied  for  my  use  : — 

EXTRACT  FROM  THE  REGISTER   I'S   B  UTS  LET   CHURCH,  NORFOLK. 

"  December  12,  1706.  —  I,  Robert  Withers,  M.  A.,  vicar  of 
Gately,  do  insert  here  a  story  which  1  had  from  undoubted 
hands ;  for  I  have  all  the  moral  certainty  of  the  truth  of  it 

possible  : — 

"  Mr.  Grose  went  to  see  Mr.  Shaw  on  the  2d  of  August  last. 
As  they  sat  talking  in  the  evening,  says  Mr.  Shaw  :  '  On  the 
21st  of  the  last  month,  as  I  was  smoking  a  pipe,  and  reading  in 
my  study,  between  eleven  and  twelve  at  night,  in  comes  Mr. 
Naylor  (formerly  fellow  of  St.  John's  college,  but  had  been 
dead  full  four  years).  When  I  saw  him,  I  was  not  much 
affrighted,  and  1  asked  him  to  sit  down,  which  accordingly  he 
did  for  about  two  hours,  and  we  talked  together.  I  asked  him 
how  it  fared  with  him.  He  said,  "Very  well."  —  "Were  any 
of  our  old  acquaintances  with  him  V  —  "  No  !"  (at  which  I  was 
much  alarmed),  "  but  Mr.  Orchard  will  be  with  me  soon,  and 
yourself  not  long  after."  As  he  was  going  away,  I  asked  him 
if  he  would  not  stay  a  little  longer,  but  he  refused.  I  asked 
him  if  he  would  call  again.  "No;"  he  had  but  three  days' 
leave  of  absence,  and  he  had  other  business.' 

"  N.  B. —  Mr.  Orchard  died  soon  after.  Mr.  Shaw  is  now 
dead  :  he  was  formerly  fellow  of  St.  John's  college  —  an  inge- 
nious, good  man.  I  knew  him  there  ;  but  at  his  death  he  had  a 
college-living  in  Oxfordshire,  and  here  he  saw  the  apparition." 

An  extraordinary  circumstance  occurred  some  years  ago,  in 
which  a  very  pious  and  very  eminent  Scotch  minister,  Ebene- 
zer  Brown  of  Inverkeithing,  was  concerned.  A  person  of  ill 
character  in  the  neighborhood  having  died,  the  family  very 
shortly  afterward  came  to  him  to  complain  of  some  exceed- 
ingly unpleasant  circumstances  connected  with  the  room  in 


SPECTRAL  LIGHTS,  ETC. 


333 


which  the  dissolution  had  taken  place,  which  rendered  it  unin 
habitable,  and  requesting  his  assistance.  All  that  is  known  by 
his  family  of  what  followed,  is  that  he  went  and  entered  the 
room  alone ;  came  out  again,  in  a  state  of  considerable  excite- 
ment and  in  a  great  perspiration ;  took  off  his  coat  and  re-en- 
tered the  room  ;  a  great  noise  and  I  believe  voices  were  then 
heard  by  the  family,  who  remained  the  whole  time  at  the  door ; 
when  he  came  out  finally,  it  was  evident  that  something  very 
extraordinary  had  taken  place ;  what  it  was,  he  said,  he  could 
never  disclose ;  but  that  perhaps  after  his  death  some  paper 
might  be  found  upon  the  subject.  None,  however,  as  far  as  I 
can  learn,  has  oeen  discovered. 

A  circumstance  of  a  very  singular  nature  is  asserted  to  have 
occurred,  not  very  many  years  back,  in  regard  to  a  professor 

in  the  college  of  A  ,  who  had  seduced  a  girl  and  married 

another  woman.  The  girl  became  troublesome  to  him  ;  and 
being  found  murdered,  after  having  been  last  seen  in  his  com- 
pany, he  was  suspected  of  being  some  way  concerned  in  the 
crime.  But  the  strange  thing  is,  that,  from  that  period,  he 
retired  every  evening  at  a  particular  hour  to  a  certain  room, 
where  he  stayed  a  great  part  of  the  night,  and  where  it  was  de- 
clared that  her  voice  was  distinctly  heard  in  conversation  with 
him  :  a  strange,  wild  story,  which  I  give  as  I  have  it,  without 
pretending  to  any  explanation  of  the  belief  that  seems  to  have 
prevailed,  that  he  was  obliged  to  keep  this  fearful  tryst. 

Visitations  of  this  description  —  which  seem  to  indicate  that" 
the  deceased  person  is  still,  in  some  way  incomprehensible  to 
us,  an  inhabitant  of  the  earth  —  are  more  perplexing  than  any 
of  the  stories  I  meet  with.  In  the  time  of  Frederick  II.  of 
Prussia,  the  cook  of  a  catholic  priest  residing  at  a  village  named 
Quarrey,  died,  and  he  took  another  ijj  her  place  ;  but  the  poor 
woman  had  no  peace  or  rest  from  the  interference  of  her 
predecessor,  insomuch  that  she  resigned  her  situation,  and  the 
minister  might  almost  have  done,  without  any  servant  at  all. 
The  fires  were  lighted,  and  the  rooms  swept  and  arranged,  and 
all  the  needful  services  performed,  by  unseen  hands.  Numbers 
of  people  went  to  witness  the  phenomena,  till  at  length  the 


331 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


story  reached  the  ears  of  the  king,  who  sent  a  captain  and  a 
lieutenant  of  his  guard  to  investigate  the  affair.  As  they  ap- 
proached the  house,  they  found  themselves  preceded  by  a 
march,  though  they  could  see  no  musicians ;  and  when  they 
entered  the  parlor  and  witnessed  what  was  going  on,  the  cap- 
tain exclaimed  :  "  If  that  doesn't  beat  the  devil !"  upon  which 
he  received  a  smart  slap  on  the  face,  from  the  invisible  hand 
that  was  arranging  the  furniture. 

In  consequence  of  this  affair,  the  house  was  pulled  down,  by 
the  king's  orders,  and  another  residence  built  for  the  minister 
at  some  distance  from  the  spot. 

Now,  to  impose  on  Frederick  II.  would  have  been  no  slight 
matter,  as  regarded  the  probable  consequences ;  and  the  offi- 
cers of  his  guard  would  certainly  not  have  been  disposed  to 
make  the  experiment ;  and  it  is  not  likely  that  the  king  would 
nave  ordered  the  house  to  be  pulled  down  without  being  thor- 
oughly satisfied  of  the  truth  of  the  story. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  stories  of  this  class  I  know — 
excepting  indeed  the  famous  one  of  the  Grecian  bride' — is  that 
which  is  said  to  have  happened  at  Crossen,  in  Silesia,  in  the 
vear  1659,  in  the  reign  of  the  Princess  Elizabeth  Charlotte. 
In  the  spring  of  that  year,  an  apothecary's  man,  called  Chris- 
topher Monig — a  native  of  Serbest,  in  Anhalt — died,  and  was 
ouried  with  the  usual  ceremonies  of  the  Lutheran  church. 
But,  to  the  amazement  of  everybody,  a  few  days  afterward,  he, 
at  least  what  seemed  to  be  himself,  appeared  in  the  shop, 
where  he  would  sit  himself  down,  and  sometimes  walk,  and 
take  from  the  shelves  boxes,  pots,  and  glasses,  and  set  them 
again  in  other  places  ;  sometimes  try  and  examine  the  goodness 
of  the  medicines,  weigh  them  with  the  scales,  pound  the  drugs 
with  a  mighty  noise  —  n*y,  serve  the  people  that  came  with 
bills  to  the  shop,  take  their  money  and  lay  it  up  in  the  counter : 
in  a  word,  do  all  things  that  a  journeyman  in  such  cases  used 
to  do.  He  looked  very  ghostly  upon  his  former  companions, 
who  were  afraid  to  say  anything  to  him,  and  his  master  being 
sick  at  that  lime,  he  was  very  troublesome  to  him.  At  last  he 
took  a  cloak  that  hung  in  the  shop,  put  it  on  nd  walked 


SPECTRAL  LIGHTS,  ETC. 


33f 


abroad,  but  minding  nobody  in  the  streets ;  he  entered  into 
some  of  the  citizen's  houses,  especially  such  as  he  had  formerly 
known,  yet  spoke  to  no  one  but  to  a  maid-servant,  whom  ht 
met  with  hard  by  the  church-yard,  whom  he  desired  to  £>o 
home  and  dig  in  a  lower  chamber  of  her  master's  house,  wh<-;<3 
she  would  find  an  inestimable  treasure.  But  the  girl,  amazed 
at  the  sight  of  him,  swooned  away ;  whereupon  he  lifted  her 
up,  but  left  a  mark  upon  her,  in  so  doing;  that  was  long  visible. 
She  fell  sick  in  consequence  of  the  fright,  and  having  told  what 
Monig  had  said  to  her,  they  dug  up  the  place  indicated,  but 
found  nothing  but  a  decayed  pot  with  a  hemarites  or  blood- 
stone in  it.  The  affair  making  a  great  noise,  the  reigning  prin- 
cess caused  the  man's  body  to  be  taken  up,  which  being  done, 
it  was  found  in  a  state  of  putrefaction,  and  was  reinterred. 
The  apothecary  was  then  recommended  to  remove  everything 
belonging  to  Monig  —  his  linen,  clothes,  books,  &c.  —  after 
which  the  apparition  left  the  house  and  was  seen  no  more. 

The  fact  of  the  man's  reappearance  in  this  manner  was  con- 
sidered to  be  so  perfectly  estabjished  at  the  time,  that  there 
was  actually  a  public  disputation  on  the  subject  in  the  academy 
of  Leipsic.  With  regard  to  the  importance  the  apparition 
attached  to  the  bloodstone,  we  do  not  know  but  that  there  may 
be  truth  in  the  persuasion  that  this  gem  is  possessed  of  some 
occult  properties  of  much  more  value  than  its  beauty. 

The  story  of  the  Grecian  bride  is  still  more  wonderful,  and 
yet  it  comes  to  us  so  surprisingly  well  authenticated,  inasmuch 
as  the  details  were  forwarded  by  the  prefect  of  the  city  in 
which  the  thing  occurred,  to  the  proconsul  of  his  province,  and 
by  the  latter  were  laid  before  the  emperor  Hadrian  —  and  as  it 
was  not  the  custom  to  mystify  Roman  emperors  —  we  are  con- 
strained to  believe  that  what  the  prefect  and  proconsul  commu- 
nicated to  him,  they  had  good  reason  for  believing  themselves. 

It  appears  that  a  gentleman,  called  Demostrates,  and  Charito, 
his  wife,  had  a  daughter  called  Philinnion,  who  died  ;  and  that 
about  six  months  afterward,  a  youth  named  Machate^,  who  had 
come  to  visit  them,  was  surprised  on  retiring  to  the  apartments 
destined  to  strangers,  by  receiving  the  visits  of  a  young  maiden 


33G 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


who  eats  and  drinks  and  exchanges  gifts  with  him.  Some  acci- 
dent having  taken  the  nurse  that  way,  she,  amazed  by  the  sight, 
summons  her  master  and  mistress  to  behold  their  daughter,  who 
is  there  sitting  with  the  guest. 

Of  course,  they  do  not  believe  her  ;  but  at  length,  wearied  by 
her  importunities,  the  mother  follows  her  to  the  guest's  cham- 
ber ;  but  the  young  people  are  now  asleep,  and  the  door  closed  ; 
but  looking  through  the  keyhole,  she  perceives  what  she  be- 
lieves to  be  her  daughter.  Still  unable  to  credit  her  senses,  she 
resolves  to  wait  till  morning  before  disturbing  them  ;  but  when 
she  comes  again  the  young  lady  had  departed  ;  while  Machates, 
on  being  interrogated,  confesses  that  Philinnion  had  been  with 
him,  but  that  she  had  admitted  to  him  that  it  was  unknown  to 
her  parents.  Upon  this,  the  amazement  and  agitation  of  the 
mother  were  naturally  very  great ;  especially  when  Machates 
showed  her  a  ring  which  the  girl  had  given  him,  and  a  bodice 
which  she  had  left  behind  her ;  and  his  amazement  was  no  less, 
when  he  heard  the  story  they  had  to  tell.  He,  however,  prom- 
ised that  if  she  returned  the  next  night,  he  would  let  them  see 
her  ;  for  he  found  it  impossible'  to  believe  that  his  bride  was 
their  dead  daughter.  He  suspected,  on  the  contrary,  that  some 
thieves  had  stripped  her  body  of  the  clothes  and  ornaments  in 
which  she  had  been  buried,  and  that  the  girl  who  came  to  his 
room  had  bought  them.  When,  therefore,  she  arrived,  his  ser- 
vant having  had  orders  to  summon  the  father  and  mother,  they 
came ;  and  perceiving  that  it  was  really  their  daughter,  they 
fell  to  embracing  her,  with  tears.  But  she  reproached  them  for 
the  intrusion,  declaring  that  she  had  been  permitted  to  spend 
three  days  with  this  stranger,  in  the  house  of  her  birth  ;  but 
that  now  she  must  go  to  the  appointed  place ;  and  immediately 
fell  down  dead,  and  the  dead  body  lay  there  visible  to  all. 

The  news  of  this  strange  event  soon  spread  abroad,  the  house 
was  surrounded  by  crowds  of  people,  and  the  prefect  was 
obliged  to  take  measures  to  avoid  a  tumult.  On  the  following 
morning,  at  an  early  hour,  the  inhabitants  assembled  in  the  the- 
atre, and  thence  they  proceeded  to  the  vault,  in  order  to  ascer- 
tain if  the  body  of  Philinnion  was  where  it  had  been  deposited 


SPECTRAL  LIGHTS,  ETC. 


337 


six  months  before.  It  was  not ;  but  on  the  bier  there  lay  the 
ring  and  cap  which  Machates  had  presented  to  her  the  first 
night  she  visited  him ;  showing  that  she  had  returned  there  in 
the  interim.  They  then  proceeded  to  the  house  of  Democrates, 
where  they  saw  the  body,  which  it  was  decreed  must  now  be 
buried  without  the  bounds  of  the  city.  Numerous  religious  cer- 
emonies and  sacrifices  followed,  and  the  unfortunate  Machates, 
seized  with  horror,  put  an  end  to  his  own  life. 

The  following  very  singular  circumstance  occurred  in  this 
country  toward  the  latter  end  of  the  last  century,  and  excited, 
at  the  time,  considerable  attention ;  the  more  so,  as  it  was 
asserted  by  everybody  acquainted  with  the  people  and  the 
locality,  that  the  removal  of  the  body  was  impossible  by  any 
recognised  means ;  besides,  that  no  one  would  have  had  the 
hardihood  to  attempt  such  a  feat :  — 

"  Mr.  William  Craighead,  author  of  a  popular  system  of 
arithmetic,  was  parish-schoolmaster  of  Monifieth,  situate  upon 
the  estuary  of  the  Tay,  about  six  miles  east  from  Dundee.  It 
would  appear  that  Mr.  Craighead  was  then  a  young  man,  fond 
of  a  frolic,  without  being  very  scrupulous  about  the  means,  or 
calculating  the  consequences.  There  being  a  lykewake  in  the 
neighborhood,  according  to  the  custom  of  the  times,  attended  by 
a  number  of  his  acquaintance,  Craighead  procured  a  confed- 
erate, with  whom  he  concerted  a  plan  to  draw  the  watchers 
from  the  house,  or  at  least  from  the  room  where  the  corpse 
lay.  Having  succeeded  in  this,  he  dexterously  removed  the 
dead  body  to  an  outer  house,  while  his  companion  occupied  the 
place  of  the  corpse  in  the  bed  where  it  had  lain.  It  was  agreed 
upon  between  the  confederates,  that  when  the  company  were 
reassembled  Craighead  was  to  join  them,  and,  at  a  concerted 
signal  the  impostor  was  to  rise,  shrouded  like  the  dead  man, 
while  the  two  were  to  enjoy  the  terror  and  alarm  of  their  com- 
panions. Mr.  Craighead  came  in,  and,  after  being  some  time 
seated,  the  signal  was  made,  but  met  no  attention  ;  he  was 
rather  surprised  ;  it  was  repeated,  and  still  neglected.  Mr. 
Craighead,  in  his  turn,  now  became  alarmed;  for  he  conceived 
it  impossible  that  his  companion  could  have  fallen  asleep  in  that 

15 


338 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


situation  ;  his  uneasiness  became  insupportable  ;  he  went  to  the 
bed,  and  found  his  friend  lifeless  !  Mr.  Craighead's  feelings,  as 
may  well  be  imagined,  now  entirely  overpowered  him,  and  the 
dreadful  fact  was  disclosed.  Their  agitation  was  extreme,  and 
it  was  far  from  being  alleviated  when  every  attempt  to  restore 
animation  to  the  thoughtless  young  man  proved  abortive.  As 
soon  as  their  confusion  would  permit,  an  inquiry  was  made  after 
the  original  corpse,  and  Mr.  Craighead  and  another  went  to 
fetch  it  in,  but  it  was  not  to  be  found.  The  alarm  and  conster- 
nation of  the  company  were  now  redoubled ;  for  some  time  a 
few  suspected  that  some  hardy  fellow  among  them  had  been 
attempting  a  Rowland  for  an  Oliver,  but  when  every  knowl- 
edge of  it  was  most  solemnly  denied  by  all  present,  their  situa- 
tion can  be  more  easily  imagined  than  described ;  that  of  Mr. 
Craighead  was  little  short  of  distraction.  Daylight  came  with- 
out relieving  their  agitation  ;  no  trace  of  the  corpse  could  be 
discovered,  and  Mr.  Craighead  was  accused  as  the  primum 
ynobile  of  all  that  had  happened  :  he  was  incapable  of  sleeping, 
and  wandered  several  days  and  nights  in  search  of  the  body, 
which  was  at  last  discovered  in  the  parish  of  Tealing,  deposited 
in  a  field,  about  six  miles  distant  from  the  place  whence  it  was 
removed. 

"  It  is  related  that  this  extraordinary  affair  had  a  strong  and 
lasting  effect  upon  Mr.  Craighead's  mind  and  conduct ;  that  he 
immediately  became  serious  and  thoughtful,  and  ever  after  con- 
ducted himself  with  great  prudence  and  sobriety." 

Among  what  are  called  superstitions,  there  are  a  great  many 
curious  ones  attached  to  certain  families ;  and  from  some  mem- 
bers of  these  families  I  have  been  assured  that  experience  has 
rendered  it  impossible  for  them  to  forbear  attaching  importance 
to  these  persuasions. 

A  very  remarkable  circumstance  occurred  lately  in  this  part 
of  the  world,  the  facts  of  which  I  had  an  opportunity  of  being 
well  acquainted  with. 

One  evening,  somewhere  about  Christmas,  of  the  year  1844, 
a  letter  was  sent  for  my  perusal,  which  had  been  just  received 
from  a  member  o**  a  distinguished  family,  in  Perthshire.  The 


SPECTRAL  LIGHTS,  ETC. 


339 


friend  who  sent  it  me,  an  eminent  literary  man,  said,  "  Read  the 
enclosed  ;  and  we  shall  now  have  an  opportunity  of  observing  if 
any  event  follows  the  prognostics."  The  information  contained 
in  the  letter  was  to  the  following  effect :  — 

Miss  D  ,  a  relative  of  the  present  Lady  C  ,  who  had 

been  staying  some  time  with  the  earl  and  countess,  at  their  seat 

near  Dundee,  was  invited  to  spend  a  few  days  at  C  castle, 

with  the  earl  and  countess  of  A  .    She  went :  and  while 

she  was  dressing  for  dinner,  the  first  evening  of  her  arrival,  she 
heard  a  strain  of  music  under  her  window,  which  finally  re- 
solved itself  into  a  well-defined  sound  of  a  drum.  When  her 
maid  came  up  stairs,  she  made  some  inquiries  about  the  drum- 
mer that  was  playing  near  the  house ;  but  the  maid  knew  noth- 
ing on  the  subject.    For  the  moment,  the  circumstance  passed 

from  Miss  D  's  mind  ;  but  recurring  to  her  again  during 

the  dinner,  she  said,  addressing  Lord  A  ,  "  My  lord,  who  is 

your  drummer?"  —  upon  which  his  lordship  turned  pale,  Lady 

A  looked  distressed,  and  several  of  the  company  (who  all 

heard  the  question)  embarrassed ;  while  the  lady,  perceiving 
that  she  had  made  some  unpleasant  allusion,  although  she  knew 
not  to  what  their  feelings  referred,  forbore  further  inquiry  till 
she  reached  the  drawing-room,  when,  having  mentioned  the  cir- 
cumstance again  to  a  member  of  the  family,  she  was  answered, 
"  What !  have  you  never  heard  of  the  drummer-boy  !"  —  "  No," 

replied  Miss  D  ;  "who  in  the  world  is  he?"  —  "Why," 

replied  the  other,  "  he  is  a  person  who  goes  about  the  house 
playing  his  drum  whenever  there  is  a  death  impending  in  the 
family.  The  last  time  he  was  heard  was  shortly  before  the 
death  of  the  last  countess  (the  earl's  former  wife),  and  that  is 

why  Lord  A  became  so  pale  when  you  mentioned  it.    1  The 

drummer'  is  a  very  unpleasant  subject  in  this  family,  I  assure 
you !" 

Miss  D  was  naturally  much  concerned,  and,  indeed,  not 

a  little  frightened  at  this  explanation,  and  her  alarm  being  aug- 
mented by  hearing  the  sounds  on  the  following  day,  she  took 

her  departure  from  C  castle  and  returned  to  Lord  C  's, 

stopping  on  her  way  to  call  on  some  friends,  where  she  related 


340 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


this  strange  circumstance  to  the  family,  through  whom  the  in- 
formation reached  me. 

This  affair  was  very  generally  known  in  the  north,  and  we 
awaited  the  event  with  interest.  The  melancholy  death  of  the 
countess  about  five  or  six  months  afterward,  at  Brighton,  sadly 
verified  the  prognostic.  I  have  heard  that  a  paper  was  found 
in  her  desk  after  her  death,  declaring  her  conviction  that  the 
drum  was  for  her ;  and  it  has  been  suggested  that  probably  the 
thing  preyed  upon  her  mind  and  caused  the  catastrophe  :  but 
in  the  first  place,  from  the  mode  of  her  death,  that  does  not 
appear  to  be  the  case ;  in  the  second,  even  if  it  were,  the  fact 
of  the  verification  of  the  prognostic  remains  unaffected  ;  besides 
which,  those  who  insist  upon  taking  refuge  in  this  hypothesis 
must  admit  that,  before  people  living  in  the  world  like  Lord 
and  Lady  A  ,  could  attach  so  much  importance  to  the  prog- 
nostic as  to  entail  such  fatal  effects,  they  must  have  had  very 
good  reason  for  believing  in  it. 

The  legend  connected  with  "  the  drummer"  is,  that  either 
himself,  or  some  officer  whose  emissary  he  was,  had  become  an 

object  of  jealousy  to  a  former  Lord  A  ,  and  that  he  was 

put  to  death  by  being  thrust  into  his  own  drum  and  flung  from 

the  window  of  the  tower  in  which  Miss  D  's  room  was 

situate*d.  It  is  said  that  he  threatened  to  haunt  them  if  they 
took  his  life ;  and  he  seems  to  have  been  as  good  as  his  word, 
having  been  heard  several  times  in  the  memory  of  persons  yet 
living. 

There  is  a  curious  legend  attached  to  the  family  of  G  , 

of  R  ,  to  the  effect  that,  when  a  lady  is  confined  in  that 

house,  a  little  old  woman  enters  the  room  when  the  nurse  is 
absent,  and  strokes  down  the  bedclothes ;  after  which  the  pa- 
tient, according  to  the  technical  phrase,  "  never  does  any  good," 
and  dies.  Whether  the  old  lady  has  paid  her  visits  or  not  I  do 
not  know,  but  it  is  remarkable  that  the  results  attending  several 
late  confinements  there  have  been  fatal. 

There  was  a  legend,  in  a  certain  family,  that  a  single  swan 
was  seen  on  a  particular  lake  before  a  death.  A  member  of 
this  family  told  me  that  on  one  occasion,  the  father,  being  a 


SPECTRAL  LIGHTS,  ETC. 


341 


widower,  was  about  to  enter  into  a  second  marriage.  On  the 
wedding-day,  his  son  appeared  sit  exceedingly  distressed,  that 
the  bridegroom  was  offended,  and,  expostulating  with  him,  was 
told  by  the  young  man  that  his  low  spirits  were  caused  by  his 
having  seen  the  swan.  He  (the  son)  died  that  night  quite  un- 
expectedly. 

Besides  Lord  Littleton's  dove,  there  are  a  great  many  very 
curious  stories  recorded  in  which  birds  have  been  seen  in  a 
room  when  a  death  was  impending ;  but  the  most  extraordinary 
prognostic  I  know  is  that  of  "  the  black  dog,"  which  seems  to 
be  attached  to  some  families : — 

A  young  lady  of  the  name  of  P  ,  not  long  since  was  sit- 
ting at  work,  well  and  cheerful,  when  she  saw,  to  her  great 
surprise,  a  large  black  dog  close  to  her.  As  both  door  and 
window  were  closed,  she  could  not  understand  how  he  had  got 
in  ;  but  when  she  started  up  to  put  him  out,  she  could  no  longer 
see  him. 

Quite  puzzled,  and  thinking  it  must  be  some  strange  illu- 
sion, she  sat  down  again  and  went  on  with  her  work,  when, 
presently,  he  was  there  again.  Much  alarmed,  she  now  ran 
out  and  told  her  mother,  who  said  she  must  have  fancied  it,  or 
be  ill.  She  declared  neither  was  the  case ;  and,  to  oblige  her, 
the  mother  agreed  to  wait  outside  the  door,  and  if  she  saw  it 

again,  she  was  to  call  her.    Miss  P  re-entered  the  room, 

and  presently  there  was  the  dog  again ;  but  when  she  called  her 
mother,  he  disappeared.  Immediately  afterward,  the  mother 
was  taken  ill  and  died.  Before  she  expired,  she  said  to  her 
daughter,  "Remember  the  black  dog!" 

I  confess  I  should  have  been  much  disposed  to  think  this  a 
spectral  illusion,  were  it  not  for  the  number  of  corroborative 
instances  ;  and  I  have  only  this  morning  read  in  the  review  of 
a  work  called  "  The  Unseen  World,"  just  published,  that  there 
is  a  family  in  Cornwall  who  are  also  warned  of  an  approaching 
death  by  the  apparition  of  a  black  dog:  and  a  very  curious 
example  is  quoted,  in  which  a  lady  newly  married  into  the 
family,  and  knowing  nothing  of  the  tradition,  came  down  from 
the  nursery  to  request  her  husband  would  go  up  and  drive 


312  THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


away  a  black  dog  that  was  lying  on  the  child's  bed.  He  went 
up,  and  found  the  child  deai  ! 

I  wonder  if  this  phenomenon  is  the  origin  of  the  Freuch 
phrase  "  bete  noir,"  to  express  an  annoyance,  or  an  augury 
of  evil  1 

Most  persons  will  remember  the  story  ofLady  Fanshawe,  as 
related  by  herself — namely,  that  while  paying  a  visit  to  Lady 
Honor  O'Brien,  she  was  awakened  the  first  night  she  slept  there 
by  a  voice,  and,  on  drawing  back  the  curtain,  she  saw  a  female 
figure  standing  in  the  recess  of  the  window,  attired  in  white, 
with  red  hair  and  a  pale  and  ghastly  aspect.  "  She  looked  out 
of  the  window,"  says  Lady  Fanshawe,  "  and  cried  in  a  loud 
voice,  such  as  I  never  before  heard,  'A  horse!  —  a  horse!  —  a 
horse  !'  and  then  with  a  sigh,  which  rather  resembled  the  wind 
than  the  voice  of  a  human  being,  she  disappeared.  Her  body 
appeared  to  me  rather  like  a  thick  cloud  than  a  real  solid  sub- 
stance. I  was  so  frightened,"  she  continues,  "  that  my  hair 
stood  on  end,  and  my  night-cap  fell  off.  I  pushed  and  shook 
my  husband,  who  had  slept  all  the  time,  and  who  was  very 
much  surprised  to  find  me  in  such  a  fright,  and  still  more  so 
when  I  told  him  the  cause  of  it,  and  showed  him  the  open  win- 
dow. Neither  of  us  slept  any  more  that  night,  bnt  he  talked  to 
me  about  it,  and  told  me  how  much  more  frequent  such  appa- 
ritions were  in  that  country  than  in  England." 

This  was,  however,  what  is  called  a  banshee  :  for  in  the  morn- 
ing Lady  Honor  came  to  them,  to  say  that  one  of  the  family 
had  died  in  the  night,  expressing  a  hope  that  they  had  not  been 
disturbed  :  "  for,"  said  she,  "  whenever  any  of  the  O'Briens  is 
on  his  death-bed,  it  is  usual  for  a  woman  to  appear  at  one  of 
the  windows  every  night  till  he  expires ;  but  when  I  put  you 
into  this  room,  I  did  not  think  of  it."  This  apparition  was  con- 
nected with  some  sad  tale  of  seduction  and  murder. 

I  could  relate  many  more  instances  of  this  kind,  but  I  wish 
as  much  as  possible  to  avoid  repeating  cases  already  in  print; 
so  I  will  conclude  this  chapter  with  the  following  account  of 
"  Pearlin  Jean,"  whose  persevering  annoyances,  at  Allanbank, 
were  so  thoroughly  believed  and  established,  as  to  have  formed 


SPECTRAL  LIGHTS,  ETC. 


343 


at  various  times  a  considerable  impediment  to  letting  the  place. 
I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  Charles  Kirkpatrick  Sharpe  for  the  ac- 
count of  Jean,  and  the  anecdote  that  follows. 

A  housekeeper,  called  Bettie  Norrie,  that  lived  many  years 
at  Allanbank,  declared  she  and  various  other  people  had  fre- 
quently seen  Jean,  adding  that  they  were  so  used  to  her,  as  to 
be  no  longer  alarmed  at  her  noises. 

"  In  my  youth,"  says  Mr.  Sharpe,  "  Pearlin  Jean  was  the 
most  remarkable  ghost  in  Scotland,  and  my  terror  when  a  child. 
Our  old  nurse,  Jenny  Blackadder,  had  been  a  servant  at  Allan- 
bank,  and  often  heard  her  rustling  in  silks  up  and  down  stairs, 
and  along  the  passage.  She  never  saw  her  —  but  her  hus- 
band did. 

"  She  was  a  French  woman,  whom  the  first  baronet  of  Allan- 
bank  (then  Mr.  Stuart)  met  with  at  Paris,  during  his  tour  to 
finish  his  education  as  a  gentleman.  Some  people  said  she  was 
a  nun,  in  which  case  she  must  have  been  a  sister  of  charity,  as 
she  appears  not  to  have  been  confined  to  a  cloister.  After  some 
time,  young  Stuart  became  either  faithless  to  the  lady,  or  was 
suddenly  recalled  to  Scotland  by  his  parents,  and  had  got  into 
his  carriage,  at  the  door  of  the  hotel,  when  his  Dido  unexpect- 
edly made  her  appearance,  and  stepping  on  the  fore-wheel  of 
the  coach  to  address  her  lover,  he  ordered  the  postillion  to 
drive  on ;  the  consequence  of  which  was,  that  the  lady  fell,  and 
one  of  the  wheels  going  over  her  forehead,  killed  her  ! 

"  In  a  dusky  autumnal  evening,  when  Mr.  Stuart  drove  under 
the  arched  gateway  of  Allanbank,  he  perceived  Pearlin  Jean 
sitting  on  the  top,  her  head  and  shoulders  covered  with  blood. 

"After  this,  for  many  years,  the  house  was  haunted  :  doors 
shut  and  opened  with  great  noise  at  midnight ;  and  the  rustling 
of  silks,  and  pattering  of  high-heeled  shoes,  were  heard  in  bed- 
rooms and  passages.  Nurse  Jenny  said  there  were  seven  min- 
isters called  together  at  one  time,  to  lay  the  spirit ;  '  but  they 
did  no  mickle  good,  my  dear/ 

"  The  picture  of  the  ghost  was  hung  between  those  of  her 
lover  and  his  lady,  and  kept  her  comparatively  quiet ;  but  when 
taken  away,  she  became  worse-natured  than  ever.    This  por- 


344 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


trait  was  in  the  present  Sir  J  G  's  possession.    I  am 

unwilling  to  record  its  fate. 

"  The  ghost  was  designated  '  Pearlin/  from  always  wearing 
a  great  quantity  of  that  sort  of  lace.* 

"  Nurse  Jenny  told  me  that  when  Thomas  Blackadder  was 
her  lover  (I  remember  Thomas  very  well),  they  made  an  as- 
signation to  meet  one  moonlight  night  in  the  orchard  at  Allan- 
bank.  True  Thomas,  of  course,  was  the  first  comer ;  and, 
seeing  a  female  figure,  in  a  light-colored  dress,  at  some  dis- 
tance, he  ran  forward  with  open  arms  to  embrace  his  Jenny. 
Lo,  and  behold  !  as  he  neared  the  spot  where  the  figure  stood, 
it  vanished  ;  and  presently  he  saw  it  again,  at  the  very  end  of 
the  orchard,  a  considerable  way  off.  Thomas  went  home  in  a 
fright ;  but  Jenny,  who  came  last,  and  saw  nothing,  forgave 
him,  and  they  were  married. 

"  Many  years  after  this,  about  the  year  1790,  two  ladies  paid 
a  visit  at  Allanbank  —  I  think  the  house  was  then  let — and 
passed  a  night  there.  They  had  never  heard  a  word  about  the 
ghost ;  but  they  were  disturbed  the  whole  night  with  something 
walking  backward  and  forward  in  their  bedchamber.  This  I 
had  from  the  best  authority. 

"  Sir  Robert  Stuart  was  created  a  baronet  in  the  year  1687. 

"  Lady  Stapleton,  grandmother  of  the  late  Lord  le  Despen- 
cer,  told  me  that  the  night  Lady  Susan  Fane  (Lord  "Westmore- 
land's daughter)  died  in  London,  she  appeared  to  her  father, 
then  at  Merriworth,  in  Kent.  He  was  in  bed,  but  had  not 
fallen  asleep.  There  was  a  light  in  the  room  ;  she  came  in, 
and  sat  down  on  a  chair  at  the  foot  of  the  bed.  He  said  to 
her,  1  Good  God,  Susan !  how  came  you  here  1  What  has 
brought  you  from  town  V  She  made  no  answer ;  but  rose 
directly,  and  went  to  the  door,  and  looked  back  toward  him 
very  earnestly  :  then  she  retired,  shutting  the  door  behind  her. 
The  next  morning  he  had  notice  of  her  death.  This,  Lord 
Westmoreland  himself  told  to  Lady  Stapleton,  who  was  by 
birth  a  Fane,  and  his  near  relation." 

*  "A  species  of  lace  made  of  thread." — Jamieson. 


APPARITIONS  SEEKING  PRAYERS. 


345 


'  CHAPTER  XV. 

APPARITIONS   SEEKING  THE   PRAYERS    OF  THE  LIVING. 

With  regard  to  the  appearance  of  ghosts,  the  frequency  of 
haunted  houses,  presentiments,  prognostics,  and  dreams,  if  we 
come  to  inquire  closely,  it  appears  to  me  that  all  parts  of  the 
world  are  much  on  an  equality  —  only,  that  where  people  are 
most*  engaged  in  business  or  pleasure,  these  things  are,  in  the 
first  place,  less  thought  of  and  less  believed  in,  consequently 
less  observed  ;  and  when  they  are  observed,  they  are  readily 
explained  away  :  and  in  the  second  place — where  the  external 
life,  the  life  of  the  brain,  wholly  prevails  —  either  they  do  not 
happen,  or  they  are  not  perceived  —  the  rapport  not  existing, 
or  the  receptive  faculty  being  obscured. 

But,  although  the  above  phenomena  seem  to  be  equally  well 
known  in  all  countries,  there  is  one  peculiar  class  of  appari- 
tions of  which  I  meet  with  no  records  but  in  Germany.  I 
allude  to  ghosts,  who,  like  those  described  in  the  "  Seeress  of 
Prevorst,"  seek  the  prayers  of  the  living.  In  spite  of  the  posi- 
tive assertions  of  Kerner,  Eschenmayer,  and  others,  that  after 
neglecting  no  means  to  investigate  the  affair,  they  had  been 
forced  into  the  conviction  that  the  spectres  that  frequented 
Frederica  Hauffe  were  not  subjective  illusions,  but  real  out- 
standing forms,  still,  as  she  was  in  the  somnambulic  state,  many 
persons  remain  persuaded  that  the  whole  thing  was  delusion. 
It  is  true,  that  as  those  parties  were  not  there,  and  as  all  those 
who  did  go  to  the  spot  came  to  a  different  conclusion,  this 
opinion  being  only  the  result  of  preconceived  notions  or  preju- 
dices, and  not  of  calm  investigation,  is  of  no  value  whatever; 
nevertheless,  it  is  not  to  be  denied  that  these  narrations  are 
very  extraordinary  j  but,  perplexing  as  they  are,  they  by  no 
*  means  stand  alone.    I  find  many  similar  ones  noticed  in  various 

15* 


316  THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


works,  where  there  has  been  no  somnambule  in  question.  In  all 
cases,  these  unfortunate  spirits  appear  to  have  been  waiting  for 
some  one  with  whom  they  could  establish  a  rapport,  so  as  to  be 
able  to  communicate  with  them ;  and  this  waiting  has  some- 
times endured  a  century  or  more.  Sometimes  they  are  seen 
by  only  one  person,  at  other  times  by  several,  with  varying  de- 
grees of  distinctness,  appearing  to  one  as  a  light,  to  another  as 
a  shadowy  figure,  and  to  a  third  as  a  defined  human  form. 
Other  testimonies  of  their  presence  —  as  sounds,  footsteps,  lights, 
visible  removing  of  solid  articles  without  a  visible  agent, 
odors,  &c.  —  are  generally  perceived  by  many;  in  short,  the 
sounds  seem  audible  to  all  who  come  to  the  spot,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  the  voice,  which  in  most  instances  is  only  heard  by 
the  person  with  whom  the  rapport  is  chiefly  established.  Some 
cases  are  related,  where  a  mark  like  burning  is  left  on  the  arti- 
cles seen  to  be  lifted.  This  is  an  old  persuasion,  and  has  given 
rise  to  many  a  joke.  But,  upon  the  hypothesis  I  have  offered, 
the  thing  is  simple  enough :  the  mark  will  probably  be  of  the 
same  nature  as  that  left  by  the  electrical  fluid  ;  —  and  it  is  this 
particular,  and  the  lights  that  often  accompany  spirits,  that  have 
caused  the  notion  of  material  flames,  sulphur,  brimstone,  &c, 
to  be  connected  with  the  idea  of  a  future  state.  According  to 
our  views,  there  can  be  no  difficulty  in  conceiving  that  a  happy 
and  blessed  spirit  would  emit  a  mild  radiance ;  while  anger  or 
malignity  would  necessarily  alter  the  character  of  the  efful- 
gence. 

As  whoever  wishes  to  see  a  number  of  these  cases  may  have 
recourse  to  my  translation  of  the  "  Seeress  of  Prevorst,"  I  will 
here  only  relate  one,  of  a  very  remarkable  nature,  that  occurred 
in  the  prison  of  Weinsberg,  in  the  year  1835. 

Dr.  Kerner,  who  has  published  a  little  volume  containing  a 
report  of  the  circumstances,  describes  the  place  where  the 
thing  happened  to  be  such  a  one  as  negatives  at  once  all  possi- 
bility of  trick  or  imposture.  It  was  in  a  sort  of  block-house  or 
fortress  —  a  prison  within  a  prison  —  with  no  windows  but 
what  looked  into  a  narrow  passage,  closed  with  several  doors. 
It  was  on  the  second  floor ;  the  windows  were  high  up,  heavily 


APPARITIONS  SEEKING  PRAYERS.  347 

barred  with  iron,  and  immovable  without  considerable  mechan- 
ical force.  The  external  prison  is  surrounded  by  a  high  wall, 
and  the  gates  are  kept  closed  day  and  night.  The  prisoners  in 
different  apartments  are  of  course  never  allowed  to  communi- 
cate with  each  other,  and  the  deputy-governor  of  the  prison 
and  his  family,  consisting  of  a  wife,  niece,  and  one  maid-ser- 
vant, are  described  as  people  of  unimpeachable  respectability 
and  veracity.  As  depositions  regarding  this  affair  were  laid 
before  the  magistrates,  it  is  on  them  I  found  my  narration. 

On  the  12th  September,  1835,  the  deputy-governor  or  keeper 
of  the  jail,  named  Mayer,  sent  in  a  report  to  the  magistrates 
that  a  woman  called  Elizabeth  Eslinger  was  every  night  visited 
by  a  ghost,  which  generally  came  about  eleven  o'clock,  and 
which  left  her  no  rest,  as  it  said  she  was  destined  to  release  it, 
and  it  always  invited  her  to  follow  it ;  and  as  she  would  not,  it 
pressed  heavily  on  her  neck  and  side  till  it  gave  her  pain.  The 
persons  confined  with  her  pretended  also  to  have  seen  this 
apparition. 

Signed  "  Mayer." 

A  woman  named  Rosina  Schahl,  condemned  to  eight  days' 
confinement  for  abusive  language,  deposed,  that  about  eleven 
o'clock,  Eslinger  began  to  breathe  hard  as  if  she  was  suffo- 
cating ;  she  said  a  ghost  was  with  her,  seeking  his  salvation.  "  I 
did  not  trouble  myself  about  it,  but  told  her  to  wake  me  when 
it  came  again.  Last  night  I  saw  a  shadowy  form,  between  four 
and  five  feet  high,  standing  near  the  bed  ;  I  did  not  see  it  move. 
Eslinger  breathed  very  hard,  and  complained  of  a  pressure  on 
the  side.  For  several  days  she  has  neither  ate  nor  drank  any- 
thing. 

Signed  "  Schahl." 

"  COURT  RESOLVES, 

"  That  Eslinger  is  to  be  visited  by  the  prison  physician,  and 
a  report  made  as  to  her  mental  and  bodily  health. 
"  Signed  by  the  magistrates, 

"  eckhardt, 
"  Theurer, 
"  Knorr. 


343 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


"  REPORT. 

"  Having  examined  the  prisoner,  Elizabeth  Eslinger,  confined 
here  since  the  beginning  of  September,  I  found  her  of  sound 
mind,  but  possessed  with  one  fixed  idea,  namely,  that  she  is 
and  has  been  for  a  considerable  time  troubled  by  an  apparition, 
which  leaves  her  no  rest,  coming  chiefly  by  night,  and  requiring 
her  prayers  to  release  it.  It  visited  her  before  she  came  to  the 
prison,  and  was  the  cause  of  the  offence  that  brought  her  here. 
Having  now,  in  compliance  with  the  orders  of  the  supreme 
court,  observed  this  woman  for  eleven  weeks,  I  am  led  to  the 
conclusion  that  there  is  no  deception  in  this  case,  and  also  that 
the  persecution  is  not  a  mere  monomaniacal  idea  of  her  own, 
and  the  testimony  not  only  of  her  fellow-prisoners,  but  that  of 
the  deputy-governor's  family,  and  even  of  persons  in  distant 
houses,  confirms  me  in  this  persuasion. 

"  Eslinger  is  a  widow,  aged  thirty-eight  years,  and  declares 
that  she  never  had  any  sickness  whatever,  neither  is  she  aware 
of  any  at  present ;  but  she  has  always  been  a  ghost-seer,  though 
never  till  lately  had  any  communication  with  them ;  that  now, 
for  eleven  weeks  that  she  has  been  in  the  prison,  she  is  nightly 
disturbed  by  an  apparition,  that  had  previously  visited  her  in 
her  own  house,  and  which  had  been  once  seen  also  by  a  girl  of 
fourteen  —  a  statement  which  this  girl  confirms.  When  at 
home,  the  apparition  did  not  appear  in  a  defined  human  form, 
but  as  a  pillar  of  cloud,  out  of  which  proceeded  a  hollow  voice, 
signifying  to  her  that  she  was  to  release  it,  by  her  prayers,  from 
the  cellar  of  a  woman  in  Wimmenthal,  named  Singhaasin, 
whither  it  was  banished,  or  whence  it  could  not  free  itself. 
She  (Eslinger)  says  that  she  did  not  then  venture  to  speak  to  it, 
not  knowing  whether  to  address  it  as  Sie,  Ihr,  or  Du  (that  is, 
whether  she  should  address  it  in  the  second  or  third  person  — 
which  custom  among  the  Germans  has  rendered  a  very  impor- 
tant point  of  etiquette.  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  this  woman 
was  a  peasant,  without  education,  who  had  been  brought  into 
trouble  by  treasure-seeking,  a  pursuit  in  which  she  hoped  to  be 
assisted  by  this  spirit.  This  digging  for  buried  treasure  is  a 
strong  passion  in  Germany. 


APPARITIONS  SEEKING  PRAYERS. 


349 


"  The  ghost  now  comes  in  a  perfect  human  shape,  and  is 
dressed  in  a  loose  robe,  with  a  girdle,  and  has  on  its  head  a 
four-cornered  cap.  It  has  a  projecting  chin  and  forehead,  fiery, 
deep-set  eyes,  a  long  beard,  and  high  cheek-bones,  which  look 
as  if  they  were  covered  with  parchment.  A  light  radiates  about 
and  above  his  head,  and  in  the  midst  of  this  light  she  sees  the 
outlines  of  the  spectre. 

"  Both  she  and  her  fellow-prisoners  declare,  that  this  appari- 
tion comes  several  times  in  a  night,  but  always  between  the 
evening  and  morning  bell.  He  often  comes  through  the  closed 
door  or  window,  but  they  can  then  see  neither  door  nor  win- 
dow, nor  iron  bars  ;  they  often  hear  the  closing  of  the  door,  and 
can  see  into  the  passage  when  he  comes  in  or  out  that  way,  so 
that  if  a  piece  of  wood  lies  there  they  see  it.  They  hear  a 
shuffling  in  the  passage  as  he  comes  and  goes.  He  most  fre- 
quently enters  by  the  window,  and  they  then  hear  a  peculiar 
sound  there.  He  comes  in  quite  erect.  Although  their  cell  is 
entirely  closed,  they  feel  a  cool  wind*  when  he  is  near  them. 
All  sorts  of  noises  are  heard,  particularly  a  crackling.  When 
he  is  angry,  or  in  great  trouble,  they  perceive  a  strange  mould- 
ering, earthy  smell.  He  often  pulls  away  the  coverlet,  and  sits 
on  the  edge  of  the  bed.  At  first  the  touch*  of  his  hand  was  icy 
cold,  since  he  became  brighter  it  is  warmer ;  she  first  saw  the 
brightness  of  his  finger-ends  ;  it  afterward  spread  further.  If  she 
stretches  out  her  hand  she  can  not  feel  him,  but  when  he  touches 
her  she^feels  it.  He  sometimes  takes  her  hands  and  lays  them 
together,  to  make  her  pray.  His  sighs  and  groans  are  like  a 
person  in  despair  ;  they  are  heard  by  others  as  well  as  Eslinger. 
While  he  is  making  these  sounds,  she  is  often  praying  aloud,  or 
talking  to  her  companions,  so  they  are  sure  it  is  not  she  who 
makes  them.  She  does  not  see  his  mouth  move  when  he 
speaks.  The  voice  is  hollow  and  gasping.  He  comes  to  her 
for  prayers,  and  he  seems  to  her  like  one  in  a  mortal  sickness, 
who  seeks  comfort  in  the  prayers  of  others.  He  says  he  was  a 
catholic  priest  in  Wimmenthal,  and  lived  in  the  year  1414."' 

*  It  is  to  be  observed  that  this  is  tbe  sensation  asserted  to  be  felt  by  Reichen- 
bach's  patients  on  the  approach  of  the  magnet. 


350 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


( Wimmenthal  is  still  catholic  ;  the  woman  Eslinger  herself  is 
a  Lutheran,  and  belongs  to  Backnang.) 

"  He  says,  that  among  other  crimes,  a  fraud  committed  con- 
jointly with  his  father,  on  his  brothers,  presses  sorely  on  him; 
he  can  not  get  quit  of  it ;  it  obstructs  him.  He  always  entreated 
her  to  go  with  him  to  Wimmenthal,  whither  he  was  banished, 
or  consigned,  and  pray  there  for  him. 

"  She  says  she  can  not  tell  whether  what  he  says  is  true  ;  and 
does  not  deny  that  she  thought  to  find  treasures  by  his  aid.  She 
has  often  told  him  that  the  prayers  of  a  sinner,  like  herself,  can 
not  help  him,  and  that  he  should  seek  the  Redeemer ;  but  he 
will  not  forbear  his  entreaties.  When  she  says  these  things,  he 
is  sad,  and  presses  nearer  ;o  her,  and  lays  his  head  so  close  that 
she  is  obliged  to  pray  into  his  mouth.  He  seems  hungry  for 
prayers.  She  has  often  felt  his  tears  on  her  cheek  and  neck ; 
they  felt  icy  cold ;  but  the  spot  soon  after  burns,  and  they  have 
a  bluish  red  mark.    (These  marks  are  visible  on  her  skin.) 

"  One  night  this  apparition  brought  with  him  a  large  dog, 
which  leaped  on  the  beds,  and  was  seen  by  her  fellow-prisoners 
also,  who  were  much  terrified,  and  screamed.  The  ghost,  how- 
ever, spoke,  and  said,  *  Fear  not ;  this  is  my  father.'  He  had 
since  brought  the  dog  with  him  again,  which  alarmed  them 
dreadfully,  and  made  them  quite  ill. 

"  Both  Mayer  and  the  prisoners  asserted,  that  Eslinger  was 
scarcely  seen  to  sleep,  either  by  night  or  day,  for  ten  weeks. 
She  ate  very  little,  prayed  continually,  and  appeared  very  much 
wasted  and  exhausted.  She  said  she  saw  the  spectre  alike, 
whether  her  eyes  were  opened  or  closed,  which  showed  that  it 
was  a  magnetic  perception,  and  not  seeing  by  her  bodily  organs. 
It  is  remarkable  that  a  cat  belonging  to  the  jail,  being  shut  up 
in  this  room,  was  so  frightened  when  the  apparition  came,  that 
it  tried  to  make  its  escape  by  flying  against  the  walls;  and 
finding  this  impossible,  it  crept  under  the  coverlet  of  the  bed, 
in  extreme  terror.  The  experiment  was  made  again,  with  the 
same  result ;  and  after  this  second  time  the  animal  refused  all 
nourishment,  wasted  away,  and  died. 

"In  order  to  satisfy  myself,"  says  Dr.  Kerner,  "of  the  truth 


APPARITIONS  SEEKING  PRAYERS. 


351 


of  these  depositions,  T  went  to  the  prison  on  the  night  of  the 
15th  of  October,  and  shut  myself  up  without  light  in  Eslinger's 
cell.  About  half-past  eleven  I  heard  a  sound  as  of  some  hard 
body  being  flung  down,  but  not  on  the  side  where  the  woman 
was,  but  the  opposite ;  she  immediately  began  to  breathe  hard, 
and  told  me  the  spectre  was  there.  I  laid  my  hand  on  her 
head,  and  adjured  it  as  an  evil  spirit  to  depart.  I  had  scarcely 
spoken  the  words  when  there  was  a  strange  rattling,  crackling 
noise,  all  round  the  walls,  which  finally  seemed  to  go  out  through 
the  window  ;  and  the  woman  said  that  the  spectre  had  departed. 

"  On  the  following  night  it  told  her  that  it  was  grieved  at 
being  addressed  as  an  evil  spirit,  which  it  was  not,  but  one 
that  deserved  pity ;  and  that  wThat  it  wanted  was  prayers  and 
redemption. 

"  On  the  18th  of  October,  I  went  to  the  cell  again,  between 
ten  and  eleven,  taking  with  me  my  wife,  and  the  wife  of  the 
keeper,  Madame  Mayer.  When  the  woman's  breathing  showed 
me  the  spectre  was  there,  1  laid  my  hand  on  her,  and  adjured 
it,  in  gentle  terms,  not  to  trouble  her  further.  The  same  sort 
of  sound  as  before  commenced,  but  it  was  softer,  and  this  time 
continued  all  along  the  passage,  where  there  was  certainly  no- 
body.   We  all  heard  it. 

"  On  the  night  of  the  20th  I  went  again,  with  Justice  Heyd. 
We  both  heard  sounds  when  the  spectre  came,  and  the  woman 
could  not  conceive  why  we  did  not  see  it.  We  could  not ;  but 
we  distinctly  felt  a  cool  wind  blowing  upon  us  when,  according 
to  her  account,  it  was  near,  although  there  was  no  aperture  by 
which  air  could  enter." 

On  each  of  these  occasions  Dr.  Kerner  seems  to  have 
remained  about  a  couple  of  hours. 

Madame  Mayer  now  resolved  to  pass  a  night  in  the  cell,  for 
the  purpose  of  observation  ;  and  she  took  her  niece,  a  girl  aged 
nineteen,  with  her  :  her  report  is  as  follows  :  — 

"It  was  a  rainy  night,  and,  in  the  prison,  pitch  dark.  My 
niece  slept  sometimes ;  I  remained  awake  all  night,  and  mostly 
sitting  up  in  bed. 

"  About  midnight  I  saw  a  light  come  in  at  the  window ;  it 


352  THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 

was  a  yellowish  light,  and  moved  slowly ;  and  though  we  were 
closely  shut  in,  I  felt  a  cool  wind  blowing  on  me.  I  said  to  the 
woman,  '  The  ghost  is  here,  is  he  not  V  She  said  '  Yes/  and 
continued  to  pray,  as  she  had  been  doing  before.  The  cool 
wind  and  the  light  now  approached  me  ;  ray  coverlet  was  quite 
light,  and  I  could  see  ray  hands  and  arms ;  and  at  the  same 
time  I  perceived  an  indescribable  odor  of  putrefaction ;  my 
face  felt  as  if  ants  were  running  over  it.  (Most  of  the  prison- 
ers described  themselves  as  feeling  the  same  sensation  when 
the  spectre  was  there.)  Then  the  light  moved  about,  and  went 
up  and  down  the  room ;  and  on  the  door  of  the  cell  I  saw  a 
number  of  little  glimmering  stars,  such  as  I  had  never  before 
seen.  Presently,  I  and  my  niece  heard  a  voice  which  I  can 
compare  to  nothing  I  ever  heard  before.  It  was  not  like  a 
human  voice.  The  words  and  sighs  sounded  as  if  they  were 
drawn  up  out  of  a  deep  hollow,  and  appeared  to  ascend  from 
the  floor  to  the  roof  in  a  column ;  while  this  voice  spoke,  the 
woman  was  praying  aloud  :  so  I  was  sure  it  did  not  proceed 
from  her.  No  one  could  produce  such  a  sound.  They  were 
strange,  superhuman  sighs  and  entreaties  for  prayers  and 
redemption. 

"  It  is  very  extraordinary  that,  whenever  the  ghost  spoke,  I 
always  felt  it  beforehand.  [Proving  that  the  spirit  had  been 
able  to  establish  a  rapport  with  this  person.  She  was  in  a 
magnetic  relation  to  him.]  We  heard  a  crackling  in  the  room 
also.  I  was  perfectly  awake,  and  in  possession  of  my  senses ; 
and  we  are  ready  to  make  oath  to  having  seen  and  heard  these 
things." 

On  the  9th  of  December,  Madame  Mayer  spent  the  night 
again  in  the  cell,  with  her  niece  and  her  maid-servant ;  and  her 
report  is  as  follows  : — 

"  It  was  moonlight,  and  I  sat  up  in  bed  all  night,  watching 
Eslinger.  Suddenly  I  saw  a  white  shadowy  form,  like  a  small 
animal,  cross  the  room.  I  asked  her  what  it  was  ;  and  she  an- 
swered, '  Don't  you  see  it's  a  lamb  1  It  often  comes  with  the 
apparition.'  We  then  saw  a  stool,  that  was  near  us,  lifted  and 
set  down  again  on  its  legs.    She  was  in  bed,  and  praying  the 


APPARITIONS  SEEKING  PRAYERS. 


353 


whole  time.  Presently,  there  was  such  a  noise  at  the  window 
that  I  thought  all  the  panes  were  broken.  She  told  us  it  was 
the  ghost,  aud  that  he  was  sitting  on  the  stool.  We  then  heard 
a  walking  and  shuffling  up  and  down,  although  I  could  not  see 
him ;  but  presently  I  felt  a  cool  wind  blowing  on  me,  and  out 
of  this  wind  the  same  hollow  voice  I  had  heard  before,  said,  *  In 
the  name  of  Jesus,  look  on  me  [' 

"  Before  this,  the  moon  was  gone,  and  it  was  quite  dark  ;  but 
when  the  voice  spoke  to  me,  I  saw  a  light  around  us,  though 
still  no  form.  Then  there  was  a  sound  of  walking  toward  the 
opposite  window,  and  I  heard  the  voice  say,  *  Do  you  see  me 
now  V  And  then,  for  the  first  time,  I  saw  a  shadowy  form, 
stretching  up  as  if  to  make  itself  visible  to  us,  but  could  distin- 
guish no  features. 

"  During  the  rest  of  the  night,  I  saw  it  repeatedly,  sometimes 
sitting  on  the  stool,  and  at  others  moving  about ;  and  I  am  per- 
fectly certain  that  there  was  no  moonlight  now,  nor  any  other 
light  from  without.  How  I  saw  it,  I  can  not  tell ;  it  is  a  thing 
not  to  be  described. 

"  Eslinger  prayed  the  whole  time,  and  the  more  earnestly  she 
did  so,  the  closer  the  spectre  went  to  her.  It  sometimes  sat 
upon  her  bed. 

"  About  five  o'clock,  when  he  came  near  to  me,  and  I  felt  the 
cool  air,  I  said,  *  Go  to  my  husband,  in  his  chamber,  and  leave 
a  sign  that  you  have  been  there  !'  He  answered  distinctly, 
'  Yes.'  Then  we  heard  the  door,  which  was  fast  locked,  open 
and  shut ;  and  we  saw  the  shadow  float  out  (for  he  floated  rather 
than  walked),  and  we  heard  the  shuffling  along  the  passage. 

"In  a  quarter  of  an  hour  we  saw  him  return,  entering  by  the 
window ;  and  I  asked  him  if  he  had  been  with  my  husband, 
and  what  he  had  done.  He  answered  by  a  sound  like  a  short, 
low,  hollow  laugh.  Then  he  hovered  about  without  any  noise, 
and  we  heard  him  speaking  to  Eslinger,  while  she  still  prayed 
aloud.  Still,  as  before,  I  always  knew  when  he  was  going  to 
speak.  After  six  o'clock,  we  saw  him  no  more.  In  the  morn- 
ing, my  husband  mentioned,  with  great  surprise,  that  his  cham- 
ber door,  which  he  was  sure  he  had  fast  bolted  and  locked,  even 


354 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


taking  out  the  key  when  he  went  to  bed,  he  had  found  wide 
open." 

On  the  24th,  Madame  Mayer  passed  the  night  there  again ; 
but  on  this  occasion  she  only  saw  a  white  shadow  coming  and 
going,  and  standing  by  the  woman,  who  prayed  unceasingly. 
She  also  heard  the  shuffling. 

Between  prisoners  and  the  persons  in  authority  who  went  to 
observe,  the  number  of  those  who  testify  to  this  phenomenon  is 
considerable ;  and,  although  the  amount  of  what  was  perceived 
varied  according  to  the  receptivity  of  the  subject  in  each  case, 
the  evidence  of  all  is  perfectly  coincident  as  to  the  character  of 
the  phenomena.  Some  saw  only  the  light ;  others  distinguished 
the  form  in  the  midst  of  it ;  all  heard  the  sound,  and  perceived 
the  mouldering  earthy  smell. 

That  the  receptivity  of  the  women  was  greater  than  that  of 
the  men,  after  what  I  have  elsewhere  said,  should  excite  no 
surprise  ;  the  preponderance  of  the  sympathetic  system  in  them 
being  sufficient  to  account  for  the  difference. 

Frederica  Follen,  from  Lowenstein,  who  was  eight  weeks  in 
the  same  cell  with  Eslinger,  was  witness  to  all  the  phenomena, 
though  she  only  once  arrived  at  seeing  the  spectre  in  its  perfect 
human  form,  as  the  latter  saw  it ;  but  it  frequently  spoke  to  her, 
bidding  her  amend  her  life,  and  remember  that  it  was  one  who 
had  tasted  of  death  that  give  her  this  counsel.  This  circum- 
stance had  a  great  effect  upon  her. 

When  any  of  them  swore,  the  apparition  always  evinced 
much  displeasure,  grasped  them  by  the  throat,  and  forced  them 
to  pray.  Frequently,  when  he  came  or  went,  they  said  it  sounded 
like  a  flight  of  pigeons. 

Catherine  Sinn,  from  Mayenfels,  was  confined  in  an  adjoining 
room  for  a  fortnight.  After  her  release,  she  was  interrogated 
by  the  minister  of  her  parish,  and  deposed  that  she  had  known 
nothing  of  Eslinger,  or  the  spectre ;  "  but  every  night,  being 
quite  alone,  I  heard  a  rustling  and  a  noise  at  the  window,  which 
looked  only  into  the  passage.  I  felt  and  heard,  though  I  could 
not  see  anybody,  that  some  one  was  moving  about  the  room ; 
these  sounds  were  accompanied  by  a  cool  wind,  though  the 


APPARITIONS  SEEKING  PRAYERS. 


355 


place  was  closely  shut  up.  I  heard  also  a  crackling,  and  a 
shuffling,  and  a  sound  as  if  gravel  were  thrown ;  but  could  find 
none  in  the  morning.  Once  it  seemed  to  me  that  a  hand  was 
laid  softly  on  my  forehead.  I  did  not  like  staying  alone,  on  ac- 
count of  these  things,  and  begged  to  be  put  into  a  room  with 
others ;  so  I  was  placed  with  Eslingen  and  Follen.  The  same 
things  continued  here,  and  they  told  me  about  the  ghost ;  but 
not  being  alone,  I  was  not  so  frightened.  I  often  heard  him 
speak;  it  was  hollow  and  slow,  not  like  a  human  voice;  but  I 
could  seldom  catch  the  words.  When  he  left  the  prison,  which 
was  generally  about  five  in  the  morning,  he  used  to  say,  'Pray  !' 
and  when  he  did  so,  he  would  add,  'God  reward  you  !'  I  never 
saw  him  distinctly  till  the  last  morning  I  was  there ;  then  I  saw 
a  white  shadow  standing  by  Eslinger's  bed. 

Signed       "  Catherine  Sinn. 
"Minister  Binder,  Mayenfels." 

It  would  be  tedious,  were  I  to  copy  the  depositions  of  all  the 
prisoners,  the  experience  of  most  of  them  being  similar  to  the 
above.  I  will  therefore  content  myself  with  giving  an  abstract 
of  the  most  remarkable  particulars. 

Besides  the  crackling,  rustling  as  of  paper,  walking,  shuffling, 
concussions  of  the  windows  and  of  their  beds,  &c,  &c,  they 
heard  sometimes  a  fearful  cry,  and  not  unfrequently  the  bed- 
coverings  were  pulled  from  them  ;  it  appearing  to  be  the  object 
of  the  spirit  to  manifest  himself  thus  to  those  to  whom  he  could 
not  make  himself  visible ;  and  as  I  find  this  pulling  off  the  bed- 
clothes, and  heaving  'up  the  bed  as  if  some  one  were  under  it, 
repeated  in  a  variety  of  cases,  foreign  and  English,  I  conclude 
the  motive  to  be  the  same.  Several  of  the  women  heard  him 
speak. 

All  these  depositions  are  contained  in  Dr.  Kerner's  report  to 
the  magistrates ;  and  he  concludes  by  saying,  that  there  can  be 
no  doubt  of  the  fact  of  the  woman  Elizabeth  Eslinger  suffering 
these  annoyances,  by  whatever  name  people  may  choose  to  call 
them. 

Among  the  most  remarkable  phenomena,  is  the  real  or  appa- 
rent opening  of  the  door,  so  that  they  could  see  what  was  in  the 


356 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


passage.    Eslinger  said  that  the  spirit  was  often  surrounded  by 
a  light,  and  his  eyes  looked  fiery ;  and  there  sometimes  came 
with  him  two  lambs,  which  occasionally  appeared  as  stars.  He 
often  took  hold  of  Eslinger,  and  made  her  sit  up,  put  her  hand 
together,  that  she  might  pray ;  and  once  he  appeared  to  take 
pen  and  paper  from  under  his  gown,  and  wrote,  laying  it  o 
her  coverled. 

It  is  extremely  curious  that,  on  two  occasions,  Eslinger  sa 
Dr.  Kerner  and  Justice  Heyd  enter  with  the  ghost,  when  the 
were  not  there  in  the  body,  and  both  times  Heyd  was  envel 
oped  in  a  black  cloud.    The  ghost,  on  being  asked,  told  Eslinge 
that  the  cloud  indicated  that  trouble  was  impending.    A  fe 
days  afterward  his  child  died  very  unexpectedly,  and  Dr.  Ker 
ner  now  remembered,  that  the  first  time  Eslinger  said  she  h 
seen  Heyd  in  this  way,  his  father  had  died  directly  afterwar 
Kerner  attended  both  patients,  and  was  thus  associated  in  th 
symbol.    Follen  also  saw  these  two  images,  and  spoke,  believ 
ing  the  one  to  be  Dr.  Kerner  himself. 

On  other  occasions  she  saw  strangers  come  in  with  the  ghos" 
whom  afterward,  when  they  really  came  in  the  body,  she  re 
ognised.    This  seems  to  have  been  a  sort  of  second  sight. 

Dr.  K.  says,  I  think  justly  enough,  that  if  Eslinger  had  bee 
feigning,  she  never  would  have  ventured  on  what  seemed  s 
improbable. 

Some  of  the  women,  after  the  spectre  had  visibly  leaned  ove 
them,  or  had  spoken  into  their  ears,  were  so  affected  by  the 
odor  he  diffused  that  they  vomited,  and  could  not  eat  till  they 
had  taken  an  emetic ;  and  those  parts  of  their  persons  that  he 
touched  became  painful  and  swollen,  an  effect  I  find  produced 
in  numerous  other  instances. 

The  following  particulars  are  worth  observing,  in  the  evi- 
dence of  a  girl  sixteen  years  of  age,  called  Margaret  Laibes- 
berg,  who  was  confined  for  ten  days  for  plucking  some  grapes 
in  a  vineyard.  She  says  she  knew  nothing  about  the  spectre, 
but  that  she  was  greatly  alarmed  the  first  night  at  hearing  the 
door  burst  open  and  something  come  shuffling  in.  Eslinger 
bade  her  not  fear,  and  said  that  it  would  not  injure  her.  The 


APPARITIONS  SEEKING  PRAYERS.  357 


girl,  however,  being  greatly  terrified -every  night,  and  hiding  her 
head  under  the  bed-clothes,  on  the  fourth  Eslinger  got  out  of  her 
own  bed,  and,  coming  to  her,  said  :  M  Do,  in  the  name  of  God, 
look  at  him  !  He  will  do  you  no  harm,  I  assure  you." — "  Then,'' 
says  the  girl,  "  I  looked  out  from  under  the  clothes,  and  I  saw 
two  white  forms,  like  two  lambs  —  so  beautiful  that  I  could 
have  looked  at  them  for  ever.  Between  them  stood  a  white, 
shadowy  form,  as  tall  as  a  man,  but  I  was  not  able  to  look 
longer,  for  my  eyes  failed  me."  The  terrors  of  this  girl  were 
so  great,  that  Eslinger  had  repeatedly  occasion  to  get  out  of 
bed  and  fetch  her  to  lie  with  herself.  When  she  could  be 
induced  to  look,  she  always  saw  the  figure,  and  he  bade  her 
also  pray  for  him.  Whenever  he  touched  her,  which  he  did 
on  the  forehead  and  eyes,  she  felt  pain,  but  says  nothing  of  any 
subsequent  swelling,    Both  this  girl  and  another,  called  Neid- 

hardt,  who  was  brought  in  on  the  last  day  of  Margaret  L  's 

imprisonment,  testified  that  on  the  previous  night  they  had 
heard  Eslinger  ask  the  ghost  why  he  looked  so  angry ;  and 
that  they  had  heard  him  answer  that  it  was  "  because  she  had 
on  the  preceding  night  neglected  to  pray  for  him  as  much  as 
usual,"  which  neglect  arose  from  two  gentlemen  having  passed 
the  night  in  the  cell. 

When  on  the  tenth  day  the  girl  Margaret  L  was  released, 

she  said  that  there  was  something  so  awful  to  her  in  this  appa- 
rition, that  she  had  firmly  resolved  and  vowed  to  be  pious  and 
lead  henceforth  a  virtuous  life. 

Some  of  them  seem  to  have  felt  little  alarm ;  Maria  Bar, 
aged  forty-one,  said  :  "  1  was  not  afraid,  for  I  have  a  good  con- 
science." The  offences  for  which  these  women  were  confined 
appear  to  have  been  very  slight  ones,  such  as  quarrelling,  &c. 

In  a  room  that  opened  into  the  same  passage,  men  were  shut 
up  for  disputing  with  the  police,  neglect  of  regulations,  and 
similar  misdemeanors.  These  persons  not  only  heard  the 
noises  as  above  described,  such  as  the  walking,  shuffling,  open- 
ing and  shutting  the  door,  &c,  &c,  but  some  of  them  saw  the 
ghost.  Christian  Bauer  deposed  that  he  had  never  heard  any- 
thing about  the  ghost,  but  that,  being  disturbed  by  a  knocking 


303 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


and  rustling  toward  three  o'clock  on  the  second  morning  of  his 
incarceration,  he  looked  up  and  saw  a  white  figure  bending 
over  him,  and  heard  a  strange  hollow  voice  say:  "You  must 
needs  have  patience!"  He  said  he  thought  it  must  be  his 
grandfather,  at  which  Strieker,  his  companion,  laughed.  Strieker 
deposed  that  he  heard  a  hollow  voice  say  :  "  You  must  needs 
have  patience  ;"  and  that  Bauer  told  him  that  there  was  a  white 
apparition  near  him,  and  that  he  supposed  it  was  his  grand- 
father. Bauer  said  that  he  was  frightened  the  first  night,  but 
got  used  to  it  and  did  not  mind. 

It  is  worthy  of  observation,  that  when  they  heard  the  door 
of  the  women's  room  open,  they  also  heard  the  voice  of  Eslin- 
ger  praying,  which  seems  as  if  the  door  not  only  appeared  to 
open,  but  actually  did  so.  We  have  already  seen  that  this 
spirit  could  open  doors.  In  the  "  Seeres^  of  Prevorst,"  the 
doors  were  constantly  audibly  and  visibly  opened,  as  by  an  un- 
seen hand,  when  she  saw  a  spectre  enter;  and  I  know  to  an 
absolute  certainty  that  the  same  phenomenon  takes  place  in  a 
house  not  far  from  where  I  am  writing ;  and  this,  sometimes, 
when  there  are  two  people  sleeping  in  the  room  —  a  lady  and 
gentleman.  The  door  having  been  fast  locked  when  they  went 
to  bed,  the  room  thoroughly  examined,  and  every  precaution 
taken  —  for  they  are  unfiling  to  believe  in  the  spiritual  char- 
acter of  the  disturbances  that  annoy  them  —  they  are  aroused 
by  a  consciousness  that  it  is  opening,  and  they  do  find  it  open, 
on  rising  to  investigate  the  fact. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  proofs,  either  of  the  force  of  vo- 
lition or  of  the  electrical  powers  of  the  apparition  that  haunted 
Eslinger,  or  else  of  his  power  to  imitate  sounds,  was  the  real, 
or  apparent,  violent  shaking  of  the  heavy,  iron-barred  window, 
which  it  is  asserted  the  united  efforts  of  six  men  could  not 
shake  at  all  when  they  made  the  experiment. 

The  supreme  court  having  satisfied  itself  that  there  was  no 
imposture  in  this  case,  it  was  proposed  that  some  men  of  sci- 
ence should  be  invited  to  investigate  the  strange  phenomenon, 
and  endeavor  if  possible  to  explain  it.  Accordingly,  not  only 
Dr.  Kerner  hims'elf  and  his  son,  but  many  others,  passed  nights 


APPARITIONS  SEEKING  PRAYERS. 


359 


in  the  prison  for  this  purpose.  Among  these,  besides  some 
ministers  of  the  Lutheran  church,  there  was  an  engraver  called 
Dutrenhofer;  Wagner,  an  artist;  Kapff,  professor  of  mathe- 
matics at  Heilbronn  ;  Frass,  a  barrister ;  Doctors  Seyffer  and 
Sicherer,  physicians ;  Heyd,  a  magistrate  ;  Baron  von  Hugel, 
&c,  &c. :  but  their  perquisitions  elicited  no  more  than  has  been 
already  narrated  —  all  heard  the  noises,  most  of  them  saw  the 
lights,  and  some  saw  the  figure.  Duttenhofer  and  Kapff  saw  it 
without  a  defined  outline;  it  was  itself  bright,  but  did  not  illu- 
minate the  room.  Some  of  the  sounds  appeared  to  them  like 
the  discharging  of  a  Leyden  jar.  There  was  also  a  throwing 
of  gravel,  and  a  heavy  dropping  of  water,  but  neither  to  be 
found.  Professor  Kapff  says  that  he  was  quite  cool  and  self- 
possessed,  till  there  was  such  a  violent  concussion  of  the  heavy, 
barred  window,  that  he  thought  it  must  have  come  in ;  then 
both  he  and  Duttenhofer  felt  horror-struck. 

As  they  could  not  see  the  light  emitted  by  the  spectre  when 
the  room  was  otherwise  lighted,  they  were  in  the  dark  ;  but 
they  took  every  care  to  ascertain  that  Eslinger  was  in  her  bed 
while  these  things  were  going  on.  She  prayed  aloud  the  whole 
time,  unless  when  speaking  to  them.  By  the  morning,  she 
used  to  be  dreadfully  exhausted,  from  this  continual  exertion. 

It  is  also  mentioned  that  the  straw  on  which  she  lay  was  fre- 
quently changed  and  examined,  and  every  means  taken  to 
ascertain  that  there  was  nothing  whatever  in  her  possession 
that  could  enable  her  to  perform  any  sort  of  jugglery.  Her 
fellow-prisoners  were  also  invited  to  tell  all  they  knew  or  could 
discover ;  and  a  remission  of  their  sentences  promised  to  those 
who  would  make  known  the  imposition,  if  there  was  one. 

Dr.  Sicherer,  who  was  accompanied  by  Mr.  Frass,  says  that, 
having  heard  of  these  phenomena,  which  he  thought  the  more 
unaccountable  from  the  circumstances  of  the  woman's  age  and 
condition,  &c.  —  she  being  a  healthy,  hard-working  person,  aged 
thirty- eight,  who  had  never  known  sickness — he  was  very  desi- 
rous of  inquiring  personally  into  the  affair. 

While  they  were  in  the  court  of  the  prison,  waiting  for  ad- 
mittance, they  heard  extraordinary  noises,  which  could  not  be 


3G0 


THE  NIGHT- SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


accounted  for,  and  during  the  night  there  was  a  repetition  of 
those  above  described  —  especially  the  apparent  throwing  of 
gravel,  or  peas,  which  seemed  to  fall  so  near  him  that  he  invol- 
untarily covered  his  face.  Then  followed  the  feeling  of  a  cool 
wind  ;  and  then  the  oppressive  odor,  for  which,  he  says,  he  can 
find  no  comparison,  and  which  almost  took  away  his  breath. 
He  was  perfectly  satisfied  that  it  was  no  smell  originating  in 
the  locality  or  the  state  of  the  prison.  Simultaneously  with  the 
perception  of  this  odor,  he  saw  a  thick,  gray  cloud,  of  no  de- 
fined shape,  near  Eslinger's  bed.  When  this  cloud  disappeared, 
l he  odor  was  no  longer  perceptible.  It  was  a  fine  moonlight 
night,  and  there  was  light  enough  in  the  room  to  distinguish 
the  beds,  &c. 

The  same  phenomena  recurred  several  times  during  the 
night :  Eslinger  was  heard,  each  time  the  ghost  was  there,  pray- 
ing and  reciting  hymns.  They  also  heard  her  say,  "Don't 
press  my  hands  so  hard  together  !"  — "  Don't  touch  me  !"  &c. 
The  voice  of  the  spirit  they  did  not  hear.  Toward  three  or 
four  o'clock,  they  heard  heavy  blows,  footsteps,  opening  and 
shutting  of  the  door,  and  a  concussion  of  the  whole  house,  that 
made  them  think  it  was  going  to  fall  on  their  heads.  About 
six  o'clock,  they  saw  the  phantom  again ;  and  altogether  these 
phenomena  recurred  at  least  ten  times  in  the  course  of  the 
night. 

Dr.  Sicherer  concludes  by  saying  that  he  had  undertaken  the 
investigation  with  a  mind  entirely  unprepossessed ;  and  that  in 
the  report  he  made,  at  the  desire  of  the  supreme  court,  he  had 
recorded  his  observations  as  conscientiously  as  if  he  had  been 
upon  a  jury.  He  adds  that  he  had  examined  everything;  and 
that  neither  in  the  person  of  the  woman,  nor  in  any  other  of 
the  inmates  of  the  prison,  could  he  find  the  smallest  grounds  for 
suspicion,  nor  any  clew  to  the  mystery,  which,  in  a  scientific 
point  of  view,  appeared  to  him  utterly  inexplicable.  Dr.  Si- 
cherer's  report  is  dated  Heilbronn,  January  8,  183G. 

Mr.  Fraas,  who  accompanied  him,  confirms  the  above  state- 
ment in  every  particular,  with  the  addition  that  he  several  times 
saw  a  light,  of  a  varying  circumference,  moving  about  the  room  j 


APPARITIONS  SEEKING  PRAYERS. 


361 


and  that  it  was  while  he  saw  this,  that  the  woman  told  him  the 
ghost  was  there.  He  also  felt  an  oppression  of  the  breath  and 
a  pressure  on  his  forehead  each  time  before  the  apparition  came, 
especially  once,  when,  although  he  had  carefully  abstained  from 
mentioning  his  sensations,  she  told  him  it  was  standing  close  at 
his  head.  He  stretched  out  his  hand,  but  perceived  nothing, 
except  a  cool  wind  and  an  overpowering  smell. 

Dr.  Seyffer  being  there  one  night,  with  Dr.  Kerner,  in  order 
to  exclude  the  possibility  of  light  entering  through  the  window, 
they  stopped  it  up.  They,  however,  saw  the  phosphorescent 
light  of  the  spectre,  as  before.  It  moved  quietly  about,  and 
remained  a  quarter  of  an  hour.  The  room  was  otherwise  per- 
fectly dark ;  the  sounds  accompanying  it  were  like  the  dropping 
of  water  and  the  discharge  of  a  Leyden  jar.  They  fully 
ascertained  that  these  phenomena  did  not  proceed  from  the 
woman. 

I  have  already  given  the  depositions  of  Madame  Mayer,  the 
wife  of  the  deputy-governor  or  keeper  of  the  prison,  who  is 
spoken  of  as  a  highly  respectable  person.  Mayer  himself,  how- 
ever, though  quite  unable  to  account  for  all  these  extraordinary 
proceedings,  found  great  difficulty  in  believing  that  there  was 
anything  supernatural  in  the  affair ;  and  he  told  Eslinger  that, 
if  she  wished  him  to  be  convinced,  she  must  send  the  ghost  to 
do  it! 

He  says  :  "  The  night  after  I  had  said  this,  I  went  to  bed  and 
to  sleep,  little  expecting  such  a  visiter ;  but,  toward  midnight, 
I  was  awakened  by  something  touching  my  left  elbow.  This 
was  followed  by  a  pain ;  arid  in  the  morning,  when  I  looked  at 
the  place,  I  saw  several  blue  spots.  I  told  Eslinger  that  this 
was  not  enough,  and  that  she  must  tell  the  ghost  to  touch  my 
other  elbow.  This  was  done  on  the  following  night,  and,  at 
the  same  time,  I  perceived  a  smell  like  putrefaction.  The  blue 
spots  followed. "  (It  will  be  remembered  that  Eslinger  had 
blue  spots  also.) 

Mayer  continues  to  say  that  the  spectre  made  known  its 
presence  in  his  chamber  by  various  sounds,  such  as  were  heard 
in  the  other  part  of  the  house.    He  never  saw  the  figure  dis- 

16 


362 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


tinctly,  but  his  wife  did  :  she  always  prayed  when  it  was  there. 
He,  however,  felt  the  cool  wind  that  they  all  described. 

The  ghost  told  Eslinger  that  he  should  continue  his  visits  to 
the  prison  after  she  had  quitted  it,  and  he  did  so.  The  second 
night  after  her  release,  they  felt  his  approach,  especially  from 
the  cool  wind,  and  Madame  Mayer  desired  him  to  testify  his 
presence  to  her  husband.  Immediately  there  were^sounds  like 
a  wind-instrument,  and  these  were  repeated  at  her  desire. 

The  prisoners  also  heard  and  felt  the  apparition  after  Eslin- 
ger's  departure  ;  and  Mayer  says  he  is  perfectly  assured  that  in 
this  jail,  where  the  inmates  were  frequently  changed,  everybody 
was  locked  up,  and  every  place  thoroughly  examined,  it  was 
utterly  impossible  for  any  trick  to  be  played :  besides  which, 
all  parties  agreed  that  the  sounds  were  often  of  a  description 
that  could  not  have  been  produced  by  any  known  means. 

But  it  was  not  to  the  prison  alone  that  this  apparition  con- 
fined his  visits.  To  whomsoever  Eslinger  sent  him,  he  went  — 
testifying  his  presence  by  the  same  signs  as  above  described. 
He  visited  the  chambers  of  several  of  the  magistrates,  of  a 
teacher  named  Neuffer,  of  the  referendary  burgher,  of  a  citizen 
named  Rummel,  and  many  others.  Of  these,  some  only  per- 
ceived his  presence  by  the  noises,  the  cool  air,  the  smell,  or 
the  touch  ;  others  saw  the  light  also,  and  others  perceived  the 
figure  with  more  or  less  distinctness. 

A  Mr.  Dorr,  of  bieilbronn,  seems  to  have  scoffed  very  much 
at  these  rumors,  and  Dr.  Kerner  bade  Eslinger  ask  the  ghost 
to  convince  him,  which  she  did. 

Mr.  Dorr  says  :  "  When  I  heard  these  things  talked  of,  I 
always  laughed  at  them,  and  was  thought  very  sensible  for  so 
doing.  Now  I  shall  be  laughed  at  in  my  turn,  no  doubt."  He 
then  relates  that,  on. the  morning  of  the  30th  of  December, 
1835,  he  awoke,  as  usual,  about  five  o'clock,  and  was  thinking 
of  some  business  he  had  in  hand,  when  he  became  conscious 
that  there  was  something  near  him,  and  he  felt  as  if  it  blew 
cold  upon  him.  He  started  up,  thinking  some  animal  had  got 
into  his  room,  but  could  find  nothing.  Next  he  heard  a  noise, 
like  sparks  from  an  electrical  machine,  and  then  a  report  close 


APPARITIONS  SEEKING  PRAYERS. 


3G3 


to  his  right  ear.  Had  there  been  anything  visible,  it  was  light 
enough  to  see  it.  This  report  was  frequently  heard  in  the 
prison. 

Wherever  the  apparition  once  made  a  visit,  he  generally  con- 
tinued to  go  for  several  successive  nights.  He  also  visited 
Professor  Kapff  at  Heilbronn,  and  Baron  von  Hugel  at  Esche- 
nau,  without  being  desired  to  do  so  by  Eslinger;  and  Neuffer, 
whom  he  also  went  to,  she  knew  nothing  of. 

When  he  visited  Dr.  Ke'rner's  chamber,  his  wife,  who  had 
prided  herself  on  her  incredulity,  and  boasted  of  being  born  on 
St.  Thomas's  day,  was  entirely  converted,  for  she  not  only  heard 
him,  but  saw  him  distinctly.  He  visited  them  for  several  nights, 
accompanied  by  the  noises  and  the  light. 

One  night,  while  lying  awake  observing  these  phenomena, 
they  fancied  they  heard  their  horse  come  out  of  his  stable,  which 
was  under  their  room.  In  the  morning,  he  was  found  standing 
outside,  with  his  halter  on  ;  it  was  not  broken,  and  it  was  evi- 
dent that  the  horse  had  not  got  loose  by  any  violence.  More- 
over, the  door  of  the  stable  was  closed  behind  him,  as  it  had 
been  at  night  when  he  was  shut  up. 

Dr.  Kerner's  sister,  who  came  from  a  distance  to  visit  them, 
had  heard  very  little  about  this  affair,  yet  she  was  awakened 
by  a  sound  that  seemed  like  some  one  trying  to  speak  into  her 
ear ;  and,  looking  up,  she  saw  two  stars,  like  those  described 
by  Margaret  Laibesberg.  She  observed  that  they  emitted  no 
rays.  She  also  felt  the  cool  air,  and  perceived  the  corpse-like 
odor.  This  odor  accompanied  the  ghost  even  when  it  appeared 
at  Heilbronn. 

It  is  remarkable  that  some  of  these  persons,  both  men  and 
women,  felt  themselves  unable  to  move  or  call  out  while  the 
spectre  was  there,  and  that  they  were  relieved  the  moment  he 
went  away.  They  appeared  to  be  magnetized  ;  but  this  feeling 
was  by  no  means  universal.  Many  were  perfectly  composed 
and  self-possessed  the  whole  time,  and  made  their  observations 
to  each  other.  All  agreed  that  the  speaking  of  the  apparition 
seemed  like  that  of  a  person  making  efforts  to  speak.  Now, 
as  we  are  to  presume  that  he  did  not  speak  by  means  of  organs, 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


as  we  do,  but  that  he  imitated  the  sounds  of  words  as  he  imi- 
tated other  sounds,  by  some  means  with  which  we  are  unac- 
quainted—  for  since  the  noises  were  heard  by  everybody  within 
hearing,  we  must  suppose  that  they  actually  existed  —  we,  who 
know  the  extreme  difficulty  of  imitating  human  speech,  may 
conceive  how  this  imitation  should  be  very  defective. 

Dutthenhofer  and  others  remarked  that  there  was  no  echo 
from  the  sounds,  as  well  as  that  the  phosphorescence  shed  no 
light  around  ;  and  though  the  spectre  could  touch  them,  or  pro- 
duce the  sensation  that  he  did,  they  could  not  feel  him  :.  but,  as 
in  all  similar  cases,  could  thrust  their  hands  through  what  ap- 
peared to  be  his  body.  The  sensation  of  his  falling  tears,  and 
the  marks  they  left,  seem  most  unaccountable ;  and  yet,  in  the 
records  of  a  ghost  that  haunted  the  countess  of  Eberstein,  in 
1685,  we  find  the  same  thing  asserted.  This  account  was  made 
public  by  the  authority  of  the  consistorial  court,  and  with  the 
consent  of  the  family. 

At  length,  on  the  11th  of  February,  the  ghost  took  his  depart- 
ure from  Eslinger ;  at  least,  after  that  day  he  was  no  more  seen 
or  heard  by  her  or  anybody  else.  He  had  always  entreated 
her  to  go  to  Wimmenthal,  where  he  had  formerly  lived,  to  pray 
for  him  ;  and,  after  she  was  released  from  the  jail,  by  the  advice 
of  her  friends,  she  did  it.  Some  of  them  accompanied  her,  and 
they  saw  the  apparition  near  her  while  she  was  kneeling  in  the 
open  air,  though  not  all  with  equal  distinctness.  A  very  re- 
spectable woman,  called  Worner —  a  stranger  to  Eslinger,  whom 
she  says  she  never  saw  or  spoke  to  till  that  day — offered  to 
make  oath  that  she  had  accompanied  her  to  Wimmenthal,  and 
that,  with  the  other  friends,  she  had  stood  about  thirty  paces 
off,  quite  silent  and  still,  while  the  woman  knelt  and  prayed; 
and  that  she  had  seen  the  apparition  of  a  man,  accompanied  by 
two  smaller  spectres,  hovering  near  her.  "  When  the  prayer 
was  ended,  he  went  close  to  her,  and  there  was  a  light  like  a 
falling  star  ;  then  I  saw  something  like  a  white  cloud,  that 
seemed  to  float  away :  and  after  that,  we  saw  no  more." 

Eslinger  had  been  very  unwilling  to  undertake  this  expedi- 
tion :  she  took  leave  of  her  children  before  she  started,  and 


APPARITIONS  SEEKING  PRAYERS.  3G5 


evidently  expected  mischief  would  befall  her ;  and  now,  on  ap- 
proaching her,  they  found  her  lying  cold  and  insensible.  When 
they  had  revived  her,  she  told  them  that,  on  bidding  her  fare- 
well, before  he  ascended  —  which  he  did,  accompanied  by  two 
bright  infantine  forms  —  the  ghost  had  asked  her  to  give  him 
her  hand ;  and  that,  after  wrapping  it  in  her  handkerchief,  she 
had  complied.  "  A  small  flame  had  arisen  from  the  handker- 
chief when  he  touched  it;  and  we  found  the  marks  of  his  fin- 
gers like  burns,  but  without  any  smell."  This,  however,  was 
not  the  cause  of  her  fainting ;  but  she  had  been  terrified  by  a 
troop  of  frightful  animals  that  she  saw  rush  past  her,  when  the 
spirit  floated  away. 

From  this  time,  nobody,  either  in  the  prison  or  out  of  it,  was 
troubled  with  this  apparition. 

This  is  certainly  a  very  extraordinary  story;  and  what  is 
more  extraordinary,  such  cases  do  not  seem  to  be  very  uncom- 
mon in  Germany.  I  meet  with  many  recorded :  and  an  emi- 
nent German  scholar  of  my  acquaintance  tells  me  that  he  has 
also  heard  of  several,  and  was  surprised  that  we  have  no  similar 
instances  here.  If  these  things  occurred  merely  among  the 
Roman  catholics,  we  might  be  inclined  to  suppose  that  they 
had  some  connection  with  their  notion  of  purgatory  :  but,  on 
the  contrary,  it  appears  to  be  among  the  Lutheran  population 
they  chiefly  occur  —  insomuch  that  it  has  even  been  suggested 
that  the  omission  of  prayers  for  the  dead,  in  the  Lutheran 
church,  is  the  cause  of  the  phenomenon.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  as  in  the  present  case,  and  in  several  others,  the  person 
that  revisits  the  earth  was  of  the  catholic  persuasion  when  alive, 
we  are  bound  to  suppose  that  he  had  the  benefit  of  his  own 
church's  prayers. 

I  am  here  assuming  that  all  the  above  strange  phenomena 
were  really  produced  by  the  agency  of  an  apparition.  If 
they  were  not,  what  were  they  ?  The  three  physicians,  who 
were  among  the  visiters,  must  have  been  perfectly  aware  of 
the  contagious  nature  of  some  forms  of  nervous  disorder,  and 
from  the  previous  incredulity  of  two  of  them,  they  must  have 
been  quite  prepared  to  regard  these  phenomena  from  that  point 


366 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


of  view  ;  yet  they  seem  unable  to  bring  them  under  the  category 
of  sensuous  illusions. 

The  apparently  electrical  nature  of  the  lights,  and  of  several 
of  the  sounds,  is  very  remarkable,  as  are  also  the  swellings  pro- 
duced on  some  of  the  persons  by  the  touch  of  the  ghost,  which 
remind  us  of  Professer  Hofer's  case,  mentioned  in  a  former  chap- 
ter. The  apparition  pf  the  dog  and  the  lambs  also,  strange  as 
they  are,  are  by  no  means  isolated  cases.  These  appearances 
seem  to  be  symbolical :  the  father  had  been  evil,  and  had  led 
his  son  to  do  evil,  and  he  appeared  in  the  degraded  form  of  a 
dog;  and  the  innocence  of  the  children,  who  had  been,  proba- 
bly, in  some  way  wronged,  was  symbolized  by  their  appearing 
as  lambs.  "  If  I  had  lived  as  a  beast,"  said  an  apparition  to  the 
Seeress  of  Provorst,  "  I  should  appear  as  a  beast."  These 
symbolical  transfigurations  can  not  appear  very  extravagant  to 
those  who  accept  the  belief  of  many  theologians,  that  the  ser- 
pent of  the  garden  of  Eden  was  an  evil  spirit  incarnated  in  that 
degraded  form. 

How  far  the  removal  of  the  horse  out  of  the  stable  was  con- 
nected wiTh  the  rest  of  the  phenomena,  it  is  impossible  to  say ; 
but  a  similar  circumstance  has  very  lately  occurred  with  regard 
to  a  dog  that  was  locked  up  in  the  house  in  this  neighborhood, 
which  I  have  several  times  alluded  to,  where  footsteps  and  rust- 
lings are  heard,  doors  are  opened,  and  a  feeling  that  some  one 
is  blowing  or  breathing  upon  them  is  felt  by  the  inhabitants. 

The  holes  burnt  in  the  handkerchief  are  also  quite  in  accord- 
ance with  mai»y  other  relations  of  the  kind,  especially  that  of 
the  maid  of  Orlach,  and  also  that  of  the  Hammerschan  family, 
-mentioned  in  "  Stilling' s  Pneumatology,"  when  a  ghost  who  had 
been,  as  he  said,  waiting  one  hundred  and  twenty  years  for 
some  one  to  release  him  by  their  prayers,  was  seen  to  take  a 
handkerchief,  on  which  he  left  the  marks  of  his  five  fingers, 
appearing  like  burnt  spots.  A  bible  that  he  touched  was 
marked  in  the  same  manner ;  and  these  two  mementoes  of  the 
apparition  were  carefully  retained  in  the  family.  This  particu- 
larity, also,  reminds  us  of  Lord  Tyrone's  leaving  the  marks  of 
his  hand  on  Lady  Beresford's  wrist,  on  which  she  ever  after- 


APPARITIONS  SEEKING  PRAYERS.  367 


ward  wore  a  black  riband.  In  several  instances  I  find  it 
reported  that  when  an  apparition  is  requested  to  render  him- 
self visible  to,  or  to  enter  into  communication  with,  other  per- 
sons besides  those  to  whom  he  addresses  himself,  he  answers 
that  it  is  impossible  ;  and  in  other  cases,  that  he  could  do  it,  but 
that  the  consequences  to  those  persons  would  be  pernicious. 
This,  together  with  the  circumstance  of  their  waiting  so  long 
for  the  right  person,  tends  strongly  to  support  the  hypothesis 
that  an  intense  magnetic  rapport  is  necessary  to  any  facility  of 
intercourse.  It  also  appears  that  the  power  of  establishing  this 
rapport  with  one  or  more  persons,  varies  exceedingly  among 
these  denizens  of  a  spiritual  world,  some  being  only  able  to 
render  themselves  audible,  others  to  render  themselves  visible 
to  one  person,  while  a  few  seem  to  possess  considerably  greater 
powers  or  privileges. 

Another  particular  to  be  observed  is,  that  in  many  instances, 
if  not  in  all,  these  spirits  are  what  the  Germans  call  gebannt, 
that  is,  banned,  or  proscribed,  or,  as  it  were,  tethered  to  a  cer- 
tain spot,  which  they  can  occasionally  leave,  as  Anton  did  the 
cellar  at  Wimmenthal,  to  which  he  was  gebannt,  but  from 
which  they  can  not  free  themselves.  To  this  spot  they  seem  to 
be  attached,  as  by  an  invisible  chain,  whether  by  the  memory 
of  a  crime  committed  there,  or  by  a  buried  treasure,  or  even 
by  its  being  the  receptacle  of  their  own  bodies.  In  short,  it 
seems  perfectly  clear,  admitting  them  to  be  apparitions  of  the 
dead,  that,  whatever  the  bond  may  be  that  keeps  them  down, 
they  can  not  quit  the  earth ;  they  are,  as  St.  Martin  says,  re- 
mainers,  not  returners,  and  this  seems  to  be  the  explanation  of 
haunted  houses. 

In  the  year  1827,  Christian  Eisengrun,  a  respectable  citizen 
of  Neckar stein ach,  was  visited  by  a  ghost  of  the  above  kind, 
and  the  particulars  were  judically  recorded.  He  was  at  Eher- 
bach,  in  Baden,  working  as  a  potter,  which  was  his  trade,  in  the 
manufactory  of  Mr.  Gehrig,  when  he  was  one  night  awakened 
by  a  noise  in  his  chamber,  and,  on  looking  up,  he  saw  a  faint 
light,  which  presently  assumed  a  human  form,  attired  in  a 
loose  gown;  he  could  see  no  head.    He  had  his  own  head  un- 


363 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


der  the  clothes ;  but  it  presently  spoke,  and  told  him  that  he 
was  destined  to  release  it,  and  for  that  purpose  he  must  go 
to  the  catholic  churchyard  of  Neckarsteinach,  and  there,  for 
twenty-one  successive  days,  repeat  the  following  verse  from  the 
New  Testament,  before  the  stone  sepulchre  there  :  — 

"  For  what  man  knoweth  the  things  of  a  man,  save  the  spirit 
of  man  which  is  in  him  ?  So,  the  things  of  God  krfcweth  no 
man,  but  the  spirit  of  God."  —  1  Cor.  ii.  11. 

The  ghost  having  repeated  his  visits  and  his  request,  the  man 
consulted  his  master  what  he  should  do,  and  he  advised  him 
not  to  trifle  with  the  apparition,  but  to  do  what  he  required, 
adding  that  he  had  known  many  similar  instances.  Upon  this, 
Eisengrun  went  to  Neckarsteinach,  and  addressed  himself  to 
the  catholic  priest  there,  named  Seitz,  who  gave  him  the  same 
counsel,  together  with  his  blessing  and  also  a  hymn  of  Luther's, 
which  he  bade  him  learn  and  repeat,  as  well  as  the  verse,  when 
he  visited  the  sepulchre. 

As  there  was  only  one  stone  sepulchre  in  the  churchyard, 
Eisengrun  had  no  difficulty  in  finding  it ;  and  while  he  per- 
formed the  service  imposed  on  him  by  the  ghost,  the  latter  stood 
on  the  grave  with  his  hands  folded  as  if  in  prayer ;  but  when 
he  repeated  the  hymn,  he  moved  rapidly  backward  and  for- 
ward, but  still  not  overstepping  the  limits  of  the  stone.  The 
man,  though  very  frightened,  persevered  in  the  thing  for  the 
time  imposed,  twenty-one  days ;  and  during  this  period  he  saw 
the  perfect  form  of  the  apparition,  which  had  no  covering  on 
its  head  except  very  white  hair.  It  always  kept  its  hands 
folded,  and  had  large  eyes,  in  which  he  never  perceived  any 
motion  ;  this  filled  him  with  horror.  Many  persons  went  to 
witness  the  ceremony. 

The  surviving  nephews  and  nieces  of  the  apparition  brought 
an  action  against  Eisengrun,  and  they  contrived  to  have  him 
seized  and  carried  to  the  magistrate's  house,  one  day,  at  the 
time  he  should  have  gone  to  the  churchyard.  But  the  ghost 
came  and  beckoned,  and  made  signs  to  him  to  follow  him,  till 
the  man  was  so  much  affected  and  terrified  that  he  burst  into 
tears.    The  two  magistrates  could  not  see  the  spectre,  but  feel» 


APPARITIONS  SEEKING  PRAYERS.  369 


ing  themselves  affected  with  a  cold  shudder,  they  consented  to 
his  going. 

He  was  then  publicly  examined  in  court,  together  with  the 
offended  family  and  a  number  of  witnesses  ;  and  the  result  was, 
that  he  was  permitted  to  continue  the  service  for  the  twenty- 
one  days,  after  which  he  never  saw  or  heard  more  of  the  ghost 
who  had  been  formerly  a  rich  timber-merchant.  The  terroi 
and  anxiety  attendant  on  these  daily  visits  to  the  churchyard, 
affected  Eisengrun  so  much,  that  it  was  some  time  before  he 
recovered  his  usual  health.  He  had  all  his  life  been  a  ghost- 
seer,  but  had  never  had  communication  with  any  before  this 
event. 

The  catholic  priest,  in  this  instance,  appears  to  have  been 
more  liberal  than  the  deceased  timber-merchant,  for  the  latter 
did  not  seem  to  like  the  Lutheran  hymn  which  the  former  pre-  • 
scribed.  His  dissatisfaction,  however,  may  have  arisen  from 
their  making  any  addition  to  the  formula  he  had  himself  indi- 
cated. 

16» 


370 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

THE  POLTERGEIST  OP  THE   GERMANS,  AND  POSSESSION. 

With  regard  to  the  so-called  hauntings,  referred  to  in  the 
preceding  chapter,  there  seems  reason  to  believe  that  the  in- 
visible guest  was  formerly  a  dweller  upon  earth,  in  the  flesh, 
who  is  prevented  by  some  circumstance  which  we  are  not  qual- 
ified to  explain,  from  pursuing  the  destiny  of  the  human  race, 
by  entering  freely  into  the  next  state  prepared  for  him.  He  is 
•  like  an  unfortunate  caterpillar  that  can  not  entirely  free  itself 
from  the  integuments  of  its  reptile  life  which  chain  it  to  the 
earth,  while  its  fluttering  wings  vainly  seek  to  bear  it  into  the 
region  to  which  it  now  belongs.  But  there  is  another  kind  of 
haunting,  which  is  still  more  mysterious  and  strange,  though  by 
no  means  unfrequent,  and  which,  from  the  odd,  sportive,  mis- 
chievous nature  of  the  disturbances  created,  one  can  scarcely 
reconcile  to  our  notions  of  what  we  understand  by  the  term 
ghost ;  for  in  those  cases  where  the  unseen  visitant  appears  to 
be  the  spirit  of  a  person  deceased,  we  see  evidences  of  grief, 
remorse,  and  dissatisfaction,  together  with,  in  many  instances, 
a  disposition  to  repeat  the  acts  of  life  —  or  at  least  to  simulate 
a  repetition  of  them  :  but  there  is  nothing  sportive  or  mischiev- 
ous, nor,  except  where  an  injunction  is  disobeyed  or  a  request 
refused,  are  there  generally  any  evidences  of  anger  or  malig- 
nity. But  in  the  other  cases  alluded  to,  the  annoyances  appear 
rather  like  the  tricks  of  a  mischievous  imp.  I  refer  to  what  the 
Germans  call  the  poltergeist,  or  racketing  spectre,  for  the  phe- 
nomenon is  known  in  all  countries,  and  has  been  known  in  all 
ages. 

Since  hearing  of  the  phenomenon  of  the  electric  girl,  which 
attracted  so  much  attention  and  occasioned  so  much  contro- 
versy in  Paris  lately,  and  other  similar  cases  which  have  since 


THE  POLTERGEIST  OF  THE  GERMANS. 


371 


Reached  me,  I  feel  doubtful  whether  some  of  these  strange  cir- 
cumstances may  not  have  been  connected  with  electricity  in  one 
form  or  another.  The  famous  story  of  what  is  familiarly  called 
the  Stockwell  ghost,  for  example,  might  possibly  be  brought 
under  this  category.  I  have  heard  some  people  assert  that  the 
mystery  of  this  affair  was  subsequently  explained  away,  and 
the  whole  found  to  be  a  trick :  but  that  is  a  mistake.  Some 
years  ago,  I  was  acquainted  with  persons  whose  parents  were 
living  on  the  spot  at  that  time;  who  knew  all  the  details,  and  to 
them  it  remained  as  great  a  mystery  as  ever ;  not  the  smallest 
light  had  ever  been  thrown  upon  it.  People  are  so  glad  to  get 
rid  of  troublesome  mysteries  of  this  description,  that  they  are 
always  ready  to  say,  "The  trick  has  been  found  out!"  and 
those  who  pride  themselves  on  not  believing  idle  stories,  are  to 
the  last  degree  credulous  when  u  the  idle  story"  flatters  their 
skepticism. 

The  circumstances  of  the  so-called  Stockwell  ghost,  which  I 
extract  from  a  report  published  at  the  time,  are  as  follows  :  — 

The  pamphlet  was  entitled  :  "  An  authentic,  candid,  and  Cir- 
cumstantial Narrative  of  the  astonishing  Transactions  at  Stock- 
well,  in  the  County  of  Surrey,  on  Monday  and  Tuesday,  the 
6th  and  7th  days  of  January,  1772;  containing  a  Series  of  the 
most  surprising  and  unaccountable  Events  that  ever  happened, 
Which  continued,  from  first  to  last,  upward  of  twenty  hours, 
and  at  different  places  :  published  with  the  consent  and  appro- 
bation of  the  family  and  other  parties  concerned,  to  authenticate 
which  the  original  copy  is  signed  by  them. 

"  Before  we  enter  upon  a  description  of  the  most  extraordi- 
nary transactions  that  perhaps  ever  happened,  we  shall  begin 
with  an  account  of  the  parties  who  were  principally  concerned, 
and,  in  justice  to  them,  give  their  characters,  by  which  means 
the  impartial  world  may  see  what  credit  is  due  to  the  following 
narrative  :  — 

"  The  events,  ipdeed,  are  of  so  strange  and  singular  a  na- 
ture, that  we  can  not  be  at  all  surprised  the  public  should  be 
doubtful  of  the  truth  of  them,  more  especially  as  there  have 
been  too  many  impositions  of  this  sort ;  but,  let  us  consider, 


372 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


here  are  no  sinister  ends  to  be  answered,  no  contributions  to 
be  wished  for,  nor  would  be  accepted,  as  the  parties  are  in 
reputable  situations  and  good  circumstances,  particularly  Mrs. 
( rolding,  who  is  a  lady  of  an  independent  fortune  :  Richard 
Fowler  and  his  wife  might  be  looked  upon  as  an  exception  to 
this  assertion  ;  but,  as  their  loss  was  trivial,  they  must  be  left 
out  of  the  question,  except  so  far  as  they  appear  corroborating 
evidences.    Mr.  Pain's  maid  lost  nothing. 

"How  or  by  what  means  these  transactions  were  brought 
about,  has  never  transpired  :  we  have  only  to  rest  our  confi- 
dence on  the  veracity  of  the  parties,  whose  descriptions  have 
been  most  strictly  attended  to,  without  the  least  deviation  : 
nothing  here  offered  is  either  exaggerated  or  diminished  —  the 
whole  stated  in  the  clearest  manner,  just  as  they  occurred  :  as 
such  only  we  lay  them  before  the  candid  and  impartial  public. 

"  Mrs.  Golding,  an  elderly  lady  at  Stockwell,  in  Surrey,  at 
whose  house  *the  transactions  began,  was  born  in  the  same 
parish  (Lambeth),  has  lived  in  it  ever  since,  and  has  always 
been  well  known  and  respected  as  a  gentlewoman  of  unblem- 
ished honor  and  character.  Mrs.  Pain,  a  niece  of  Mrs.  Gold- 
ing, has  been  married  several  years  to  Mr.  Pain,  a  farmer,  at 
Brixton  causeway,  a  little  above  Mr.  Angel's  —  has  several 
children,  and  is  well  known  and  respected  in  the  parish.  Mary 
Martin,  Mr.  Pain's  servant,  an  elderly  woman,  has  lived  two 
years  with  them  and  four  years  with  Mrs.  Golding,  where  she 
came  from.  Richard  Fowler  lives  almost  opposite  to  Mr.  Pain, 
at  the  Brick  pound — an  honest,  industrious,  and  sober  man. 
And  Sarah  Fowler,  wife  to  the  above,  is  an  industrious  and 
sober  woman. 

M  These  are  the  subscribing  evidences  that  we  must  rest  the 
truth  of  the  facts  upon  ;  yet  there  are  numbers  of  other  persons 
who  were  eye-witnesses  of  many  of  the  transactions  during  the 
time  they  happened,  all  of  whom  must  acknowledge  the  truth 
of  them. 

"  Another  person  who  bore  a  principal  part  in  these  scenes 
was  Ann  Robinson,  Mrs.  Golding's  maid,  a  young  woman  about 
twenty  years  old,  who  had  lived  with  her  but  one  week  and 


THE  POLTERGEIST  OF  THE  GERMANS. 


373 


three  days.  So  much  for  the  historic  persona,  and  now  for 
the  narrative. 

"  On  Monday,  January  the  6th,  1772,  .about  ten  o'clock  in 
the  forenoon,  as  Mrs.  Golding  was  in  her  parlor,  she  heard  the 
china  and  glasses  in  the  back  kitchen  tumble  down  and  break ; 
her  maid  came  to  her  and  told  her  the  stone  plates  were  falling 
from  the  shelf ;  Mrs.  Golding  went  into  the  kitchen  and  saw 
them  broke.  Presently  after,  a  row  of  plates  from  the  next 
shelf  fell  down  likewise,  while  she  was  there,  and  nobody  near 
them ;  this  astonished  her  much,  and  while  she  was  thinking 
about  it,  other  things  in  different  places  began  to  tumble  about, 
some  of  them  breaking,  attended  with  violent  noises  all  over 
the  house  ;  a  clock  tumbled  down  and  the  case  broke  ;  a  lan- 
tern that  hung-  on  the  staircase  was  thrown  down  and  the  <?lass 
broken  to  pieces  ;  an  earthen  pan  of  salted  beef  broke  to  pieces 
and  the  beef  fell  about :  all  this  increased  her  surprise  and 
brought  several  persons  about  her,  among  wRom  was  Mr. 
Rowlidge,  a  carpenter,  who  gave  it  as  his  opinion  that  the 
foundation  was  giving  way  and  that  the  house  was  tumbling 
down,  occasioned  by  the  too  great  weight  of  an  additional 
room  erected  above :  so  ready  are  we  to  discover  natural 
causes  for  everything !  But  no  such  thing  happened,  as  the 
reader  will  find  ;  for  whatever  was  the  cause,  that  cause  ceased 
almost  as  soon  as  Mrs.  Golding  and  her  maid  left  any  place, 
and  followed  them  wherever  they  went.  Mrs.  Golding  ran 
into  Mr.  Gresham's  house,  a  gentleman  living  next  door  to 
her,  where  she  fainted. 

"  In  the  interim,  Mr.  Rowlidge  and  other  persons  were 
removing  Mrs.  Golding's  effects  from  her  house,  for  fear  of  the 
consequences  he  had  prognosticated.  At  this  time  all  was 
quiet ;  Mrs.  Golding's  maid,  remaining  in  the  house,  was  gone 
up  stairs,  and  when  called  upon  several  times  to  come  down, 
for  fear  of  the  dangerous  situation  she  was  thought  to  be  in, 
she  answered  very  coolly,  and  after  some  time  came  down  as 
deliberately,  without  any  seeming  fearful  apprehensions. 

"  Mrs.  Pain  was  sent  for  from  Brixton  Causeway,  and  desired 
to  come  directly,  as  her  aunt  was  supposed  to  be  dead  :  this  was 


374 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


the  message  to  her.  When  Mrs.  Pain  came,  Mrs.  Goldiug  was 
come  to  herself,  but  very  faint. 

"  Among  the  persons  who  were  present  was  Mr.  Gardner,  a 
surgeon,  of  Clapham,  whom  Mrs.  Pain  desired  to  bleed  her 
aunt,  which  he  did.  Mrs.  Pain  asked  him  if  the  blood  should 
be  thrown  away  :  he  desired  it  might  not,  as  he  would  examine 
it  when  cold.  These  minute  particulars  would  not  be  taken 
notice  of,  but  as  a  chain  to  what  follows.  For  the  next  circum- 
stance is  of  a  more  astonishing  nature  than  anything  that  had 
preceded  it:  the  blood  that  was  just  congealed,  sprang  out  of 
the  basin  upon  the  floor,  and  presently  after  the  basin  broke  to 
pieces  !  This  china  basin  was  the  only  thing  broke  belonging 
to  Mr.  Gresham;  a  bottle  of  rum  that  stood  by  it  broke  at  the 
same  time. 

"  Among  the  things  that  were  removed  to  Mr.  Gresham's, 
was  a  tray  full  of  china,  a  japan  bread-basket,  some  mahogany 
waiters,  with  some  bottles  of  liquors,  jars  of  pickles,  &c,  and  a 
pier-glass,  which  was  taken  down  by  Mr.  Saville  (a  neighbor 
of  Mrs.  Golding's)  ;  he  gave  it  to  one  Robert  Hames,  who  laid  it 
on  the  grass-plat  at  Mrs.  Gresham's  :  but,  before  he  could  put 
it  out  of  his  hands,  some  parts  of  the  frame  on  each  side  flew 
off!  It  rained  at  that  time  ;  Mrs.  Golding  desired  it  might  be 
brought  into  the  parlor,  where  it  was  put  under  a  sideboard, 
and  a  dressing-glass  along  with  it.  It  had  not  been  there  long, 
before  the  glasses  and  china  which  stood  on  the  sideboard  be- 
gan to  tumble  about  and  fall  down,  and  broke  both  the  glasses 
to  pieces.  Mr.  Saville  and  others  being  asked  to  drink  a  glass 
of  wine  or  rum,  both  the  bottles  broke  in  pieces  before  they 
were  uncorked  ! 

"  Mrs.  Golding's  surprise  and  fear  increasing,  she  did  not 
know  what  to  do,  or  where  to  go.  Wherever  she  and  her  maid 
were,  these  strange,  destructive  circumstances  followed  her, 
and  how  to  help  or  free  herself  from  them  was  not  in  her  power 
or  any  other  person's  present.  Her  mind  was  one  confused 
chaos,  lost  to  herself  and  everything  about  her — drove  from 
her  own  home,  and  afraid  there  would  be  no  other  to  receive 
her.    At  last  she  left  Mr.  Gresham's  and  went  to  Mr.  Mayling's, 


THE  POLTERGEIST  OF  THE  GERMANS. 


375 


Q  gentleman  at  the  next  door  ;  here  she  stayed  about  three  quar- 
ters of  an  hour,  during  which  time  nothing  happened.  Her  maid 
stayed  at  Mr.  Gresham's  to  put  up  what  few  things  remained 
unbroken  of  her  mistress's,  in  a  back  apartment,  when  ajar  of 
pickles  that  stood  upon  a  table  turned  upside  down  ;  then  ajar 
of  raspberry  jam  broke  to  pieces ;  next  two  mahogany  waiters 
and  a  quadrille-box  likewise  broke  in  pieces. 

"  Mrs.  Pain,  not  choosing  her  aunt  should  stay  too  long  at  Mr. 
Mayling's,  for  fear  of  being  troublesome,  persuaded  her  to  go  to 
her  house  at  Rush  Common,  near  Brixton  Causeway,  where  she 
would  endeavor  to  make  her  as  happy  as  she  could,  hoping  by 
this  time  all  was  over,  as  nothing  had  happened  at  that  gentle- 
man's house  while  she  was  there.  This  was  about  two  o'clock 
in  the  afternoon. 

"  Mr.  and  Miss  Gresham  were  at  Mr.  Pain's  house  when 
Mrs.  Pain,  Mrs.  Golding,  and  her  maid,  went  there.  It  being 
about  dinner-time,  they  all  dined  together;  in  the  interim,  Mrs. 
Golding's  servant  was  sent  to  her  house  to  see  how  things  re- 
mained. When  she  returned,  she  told  them  nothing  had  hap- 
pened since  they  left  it.  Some  time  after,  Mr.  Gresham  and 
miss  went  home,  everything  remaining  quiet  at  Mr.  Pain's  ; 
but  about  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening  a  fresh  scene  began. 
The  first  thing  that  happened  was,  a  whole  row  of  pewter 
dishes,  except  one,  fell  from  off  a  shelf  to  the  middle  of  the 
floor,  rolled  about  a  little  while,  then  settled;  and,  what  is 
almost  beyond  belief,  as  soon  as  they  were  quiet,  turned  upside 
down  !  They  were  then  put  on  the  dresser,  and  went  through 
the  same  a  second  time.  Next  fell  a  whole  row  of  pewter 
plates  from  off  the  second  shelf  over  the  dresser  to  the  ground, 
and,  being  taken  up  and  put  on  the  dresser  one  in  another,  they 
were  thrown  down  again. 

"  The  next  thing  was,  two  eggs  that  were  upon  one  of  the 
pewtei  shelves,  one  of  them  flew  off,  crossed  the  kitchen,  struck 
a  cat  on  the  head,  and  then  broke  in  pieces. 

"  Next,  Mary  Martin,  Mrs.  Pain's  servant,  went  to  stir  the 
kitchen  fire  ;  she  got  to  the  right-hand  side  of  it,  being  a  large- 
chimney,  as  is  usual  in  farmhouses.    A  pestle  and  mortar  that 


376 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


stood  nearer  the  left-hand  end  of  the  chimney-shelf,  jumped 
about  six  feet  on  the  floor !  Then  went  candlesticks  and  other 
brasses,  scarcely  anything  remaining  in  its  place.  After  this, 
the  glasses  and  china  were  put  down  on  the  floor  for  fear  of 
undergoing  the  same  fate  :  they  presently  began  to  dance  and 
tumble  about,  and  then  broke  to  pieces.  A  teapot  that  was 
among  them  flew  to  Mrs.  Golding's  maid's  foot,  and  struck  it. 

"  A  glass  tumbler  that  was  put  on  the  floor  jumped  about 
two  feet  and  then  broke.  Another  that  stood  by  it  jumped 
about  at  the  same  time,  but  did  not  break  till  some  hours  after, 
when  it  jumped  again,  and  then  broke.  A  china  bowl  that 
stood  in  the  parlor  jumped  from  the  floor  to  behind  a  table  that 
stood  there.  This  was  most  astonishing,  as  the  distance  from 
where  it  stood  was  between  seven  and  eight  feet,  but  was  not 
broke.  It  was  put  back  by  Richard  Fowler  to  its  place,  where 
it  remained  some  time,  and  then  flew  to  pieces. 

"  The  next  thing  that  followed  was  a  mustard-pot,  that  jumped 
out  of  a  closet  and  was  broke.  A  single  cup  that  stood  upon 
the  table  (almost  the  only  thing  remaining)  jumped  up,  flew 
across  the  kitchen,  ringing  like  a  bell,  and  then  was  dashed  to 
pieces  against  the  dresser.  A  candlestick  that  stood  on  the 
chimney-shelf  flew  across  the  kitchen  to  the  parlor-door,  at 
about  fifteen  feet  distance.  A  teakettle  under  the  dresser  was 
thrown  out  about  two  feet ;  another  kettle,  that  stood  at  one  end 
of  the  range,  was  thrown  against  the  iron  that  is  fixed  to  pre- 
vent children  from  falling  into  the  fire.  A  tumbler  with  rum- 
and-water  in  it,  that  stood  upon  a  waiter  upon  a  table  in  the 
parlor,  jumped  about  ten  feet,  and  was  broke.  The  table  then 
fell  down,  and  along  with  it  a  silver  tankard  belonging  to  Mrs. 
Golding — the  waiter  in  which  stood  the  tumbler,  and  a  candle- 
stick.   A  case-bottle  then  flew  to  pieces. 

"  The  next  circumstance  was,  a  ham  that  hung  in  one  side 
of  the  kitchen-chimney  raised  itself  from  the  hook  and  fell  down 
to  the  ground.  Some  time  after,  another  ham,  that  hung  on  the 
other  side  of  the  chimney,  likewise  underwent  the  same  fate. 
*  Then  a  flitch  of  bacon,  which  hung  up  in  the  same  chimney, 
fell  down. 


THE  POLTERGEIST  OF  THE  GERMANS. 


377 


"  All  the  family  were  eye-witnesses  to  these  circumstances, 
as  well  as  other  persons,  some  of  whom  were  so  alarmed  and 
shocked,  that  they  could  not  bear  to  stay,  and  were  happy  in 
getting  away,  though  the  unhappy  family  were  left  in  the  midst 
of  their  distresses.  Most  of  the  genteel  families  around  were 
continually  sending  to  inquire  after  them,  and  whether  all  was 
over  or  not.  Is  it  not  surprising  that  some  among  them  had 
not  the  inclination  and  resolution  to  try  to  unravel  this  most 
intricate  affair,  at  a  time  when  it  would  have  been  in  their 
power  to  have  done  so  1  There  certainly  was  sufficient  time 
for  so  doing,  as  the  whole,  from  first  to  last,  continued  upward 
of  twenty  hours. 

"  At  all  the  times  of  action,  Mrs.  Golding's  servant  was  walk- 
ing backward  and  forward,  in  either  the  kitchen  or  parlor,  or 
wherever  some  of  the  family  happened  to  be.  Nor  could  they 
get  her  to  sit  down  five  minutes  together,  except  at  one  time 
for  about  half  an  hour  toward  the  morning,  when  the  family 
were  at  prayers  in  the  parlor ;  then  all  was  quiet :  but  in  the 
midst  of  the  greatest  confusion,  she  was  as  much  composed  as 
at  any  other  time,  and  with  uncommon  coolness  of  temper  ad- 
vised her  mistress  not  to  be  alarmed  or  uneasy,  as  she  said 
these  things  could  not  be  helped.  Thus  she  argued,  as  if 
they  were  common  occurrences,  which  must  happen  in  every 
family ! 

"  This  advice  surprised  and  startled  her  mistress  almost  as 
much  as  the  circumstances  that  occasioned  it.  For  how  can 
we  suppose  that  a  girl  of  about  twenty  years  old  (an  age  when 
female  timidity  is  too  often  assisted  by  superstition)  could  re- 
main in  the  midst  of  such  calamitous  circumstances  (except  they 
proceed  from  causes  best  known  to  herself),  and  not  be  struck 
with  the  same  terror  as  every  other  person  was  who  was  pres- 
ent 1  These  reflections  led  Mr.  Pain  (and,  at  the  end  of  the 
transactions,  likewise  Mrs.  Golding)  to  think  that  she  was  not 
altogether  so  unconcerned  as  she  appeared  to  be ;  but,  hitherto, 
the  whole  remains  mysterious  and  unrivalled. 

"  About  ten  o'clock  at  night,  they  sent  over  the  way  to  Rich 
ard  Fowler,  to  desire  he  would  come  and  stay  with  them.  He 


378 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


came  and  continued  till  one  in  the  morning,  and  was  so  terri- 
fied that  he  could  remain  no  longer. 

"  As  Mrs.  Golding  could  not  be  persuaded  to  go  to  bed,  Mrs. 
Pain  at  that  time  (one  o'clock)  made  an  excuse  to  go  up  stairs 
to  her  youngest  child,  under  pretence  of  getting  it  to  sleep,  but 
she  really  acknowledges  it  was  through  fear,  as  she  declares 
she  could  not  sit  up  to  see  such  strange  things  going  on,  as 
everything,  one  after  another,  was  broke,  till  there  was  not 
•above  two  or  three  cups  and  saucers  remaining  out  of  a  consid- 
erable quantity  of  china,  &c,  which  was  destroyed  to  the  amount 
of  some  pounds. 

"  About  five  o'clock  on  Tuesday  morning,  Mrs.  Golding  went 
up  to  her  niece,  and  desired  her  to  get  up,  as  the  noises  and 
destruction  were  so  great,  she  could  continue  in  the  house  no 
longer.  At  this  time  all  the  tables,  chairs,  drawers,  &c,  were 
tumbling  about.  When  Mrs.  Pain  came  down,  it  was  amazing 
beyond  all  description.  Their  only  security  then  was  to  quit 
the  house,  for  fear  of  the  same  catastrophe  as  had  been  ex-» 
pected  the  morning  before  at  Mrs.  Golding's.  In  consequence 
of  this  resolution,  Mrs.  Golding  and  her  maid  went  over  the 
way  to  Richard  Fowler's.  When  Mrs.  Golding's  maid  had 
seen  her  safe  to  Richard  Fowler's,  she  came  back  to  Mrs.  Pain, 
to  help  her  to  dress  the  children  in  the  barn,  where  she  had 
carried  them  for  fear  of  the  house  falling.  At  this  time  all  was 
quiet.  They  then  went  to  Fowler's,  and  then  began  the  same 
scene  as  had  happened  at  the  other  places.  It  must  be  re- 
marked, all  was  quiet  here  as  well  as  elsewhere,  till  the  maid 
returned. 

"  When  they  got  to  Mr.  Fowler's,  he  began  to  light  a  fire  in 
his  back  room.  When  done,  he  put  the  candle  and  candlestick 
upon  a  table  in  the  fore -room.  This  apartment  Mrs.  Golding 
and  her  maid  had  passed  through.  Another'candlestick,  with 
a  tin  lamp  in  it,  that  stood  by  it,  were  both  dashed  together,  and 
foil  to  the  ground.  A  lantern,  with  which  Mrs.  Golding  was 
lighted  across  the  road,  sprang  from  a  hook. to  the  ground,  and 
a  quantity  of  oil  spilled  on  the  floor.  The  last  thing  was,  the 
basket  of  coals  tumbled  over,  the  coals  rolling  about  the  room 


THE  POLTERGEIST  OF  THE  GERMANS. 


37S 


The  maid  then  desired  Richard  Fowler  not  to  let  her  mistress 
remain  there,  as  she  said  wherever  she  was  the  same  things 
would  follow.  In  consequence  of  this  advice,  and  fearing 
greater  losses  to  himself,  he  desired  she  would  quit  his  house ; 
but  first  begged  her  to  consider  within  herself,  for  her  own  and 
the  public's  sake,  whether  or  not  she  had  been  guilty  of  some 
atrocious  crime,  for  which  Providence  was  determined  to  pur- 
sue her  on  this  side  of  the  grave  :  for  he  could  not  help  think- 
ing she  was  the  object  that  was  to  be  made  an  example  to  pos-* 
terity,  by  the  all  seeing  eye  of  Providence,  for  crimes  which 
but  too  often  none  but  that  Providence  can  penetrate,  and  by 
such  means  as  these  bring  to  light. 

tc  Thus  was  the  poor  gentlewoman's  measure  of  affliction 
complete,  not  only  to  have  undergone  all  which  has  been  re- 
lated, but  to  have  added  to  it  the  character  of  a  bad  and  wicked 
woman,  when  till  this  time  she  was  esteemed  as  a  most  deserv- 
ing person.  In  candor  to  Fowler,  he  could  not  be  blamed." 
What  could  he  do  ?  what  would  any  man  have  done  that  was 
so  circumstanced  ?  Mrs.  Golding  soon  satisfied  him  :  she  told 
him  she  would  not  stay  in  his  house  or  any  other  person's,  as 
her  conscience  was  quite  clear,  and  she  could  as  well  wait  the 
will  of  Providence  in  her  own  house  as  in  any  other  place  what- 
ever; upon  which  she  and  her  maid  went  home.  Mr.  Pain 
went  with  them.  After  they  had  got  to  Mrs.  Golding's  the  last 
time,  the  same  transactions  once  more  began  upon  the  remains 
that  were  left. 

"  A  nine-gallon  cask  of  beer,  that  was  in  the  cellar,  the  door 
being  open,  and  no  person  near  it,  turned  upside  down.  A  pail 
of  water,  that  stood  on  the  floor,  boiled  like  a  pot !  A  box  of 
candles  fell  from  a  shelf  in  the  kitchen  to  the  floor ;  they  rolled 
out,  but  none  were  broke  :  and  a  round  mahogany  table  over- 
set in  the  parlor. 

"  Mr.  Pain  then  desired  Mrs.  Golding  to  send  her  maid  for 
his  wife  to  come  to  them.    When  she  was  gone,  all  was  quiet 
Upon  her  return  she  was  immediately  discharged,  and  no  dis 
turbances  have  happened  since.    This  was  between  six  and 
seven  o'clock  on  Tuesday  morning.  • 


380 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


"  At  Mrs.  Golding's  were  broke  the  quantity  of  three  pail- 
fuls  of  glass,  china,  &c.    At  Mrs.  Pain's  they  filled  two  pails. 

"  Thus  ends  the  narrrative  —  a  true,  circumstantial,  and  faith- 
ful account  of  which  we  have  laid  before  the  public ;  and  have 
endeavored  as  much  as  possible,  throughout  the  whole,  to  state 
only  facts,  without  presuming  to  obtrude  any  opinion  on  them. 
If  we  have  in  part  hinted  anything  that  may  appear  unfavora- 
ble to  the  girl,  it  is  not  from  a  determination  to  charge  her  with 
•the  cause,  right  or  wrong,  but  only  from  a  strict  adherence  to 
truth,  most  sincerely  wishing  this  extraordinary  affair  may  be 
unravelled. 

"  The  above  narrative  is  absolutely  and  strictly  true,  in  wit- 
ness whereof  we  have  set  our  hands  this  eleventh  day  of  Janu- 
ary, 1772  :— 

"  Mary  Golding, 
"John  Pain, 
"Mary  Pain, 
"  Richard  Fowler, 
"  Sarah  Fowler, 
"Mary  Martin. 
"  The  original  copy  of  this  narrative,  signed  as  above,  with 
the  parties'  own  hands,  was  put  into  the  hands  of  Mr.  Marks, 
bookseller,  in  St.  Martin's* Lane,  to  satisfy  persons  who  choose 
to  inspect  the  same." 

Such  phenomena  as  this  of  the  Stockwell  ghost  are  by  no 
means  uncommon,  and  I  am  acquainted  with  many  more  in- 
stances than  I  can  allude  to  here.  One  occurred  very  lately  in 
the  neighborhood  of  London,  as  I  learned  from  the  following 
newspaper  paragraph.  I  subsequently  heard  that  the  little  girl 
had  been  sent  away ;  but  whether  the  phenomena  then  ceased, 
or  whether  she  carried  the  disturbance  with  her,  I  have  not 
been  able  to  ascertain,  nor  does  it  appear  certain  that  she  had 
anything  to  do  with  it  : — 

A  Mischievous  and  Mysterious  Ghost. — (From  a  corre- 
spondent.)— The  whole  of  the  neighborhood  of  Black  Lion-lane, 
Bayswater,  is  ringing  with  the  extraordinary  occurrences  that 
have  recently  happened  in  the  house  of  a  Mr.  Williams,  in  the 


THE  POLTERGEIST  OF  THE  GERMANS. 


381 


Moscow-road,  and  which  bear  a  strong  resemblance  to  the  cel- 
ebrated Stock  well  ghost  affair  in  1772.  The  house  is  inhabited 
by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Williams,  a  grown-up  son  and  daughter,  and  a 
little  girl  between  ten  and  eleven  years  of  age.  On  the  first  day, 
the  family,  who  are  remarkable  for  their  piety,  were  startled  all 
at  once  by  a  mysterious  movement  among  the  things  in  the  sit- 
ting-rooms and  kitchen,  and  other  parts  of  the  house.  At  one 
time,  without  any  visible  agency,  one  of  the  jugs  came  off  the 
hook  over  the  dresser,  and  was  broken;  then  followed  another,, 
and  next  day  another.  A  china  teapot,  with  the  tea  just  made 
in  it,  and  placed  on  the  mantel-piece,  whisked  off  on  to  the  floor, 
and  was  smashed.  A  pewter  one,  which  had  been  substituted 
immediately  after,  did  the  same,  and,  when  put  on  the  table, 
was  seen  to  hop  about  as  if  bewitched,  and  was  actually  held 
down  while  the  tea  was  made  for  Mr.  Williams's  breakfast,  be- 
fore leaving  for  his  place  of  business.  When  for  a  time  all  had 
been  quiet,  off  came  from  its  place  on  the  wall,  a  picture  in  a 
heavy  gilt  frame,  and  fell  to  the  floor  without  being  broken.  All 
was  now  amazement  and  terror,  for  the  old  people  are  very  su- 
perstitious, and  ascribing  it  to  a  supernatural  agency,  the  other 
pictures  were  removed,  and  stowed  away  on  the  floor.  But 
the  spirit  of  locomotion  was  not  to  be  arrested.  Jugs  and 
plates  continued  at  intervals  to  quit  their  posts,  and  skip  off 
their  hooks  and  shelves  into  the  middle  of  the  room,  as  though 
they  were  inspired  by  the  magic  flute,  and  at  supper,  when  the 
little  girl's  mug  was  filled  with  beer,  the  mug  slided  off  the  table 
on  to  the  floor.  Three  times  it  was  replaced,  and  three  times 
it  moved  off  again.  It  would  be  tedious  to  relate  the  fantastic 
tricks  which  have  been  played  by  household  articles  of  every 
kind.  An  Egyytian  vase  jumped  off  the  table  suddenly,  when 
no  soul  was  near,  and  was  smashed  to  pieces.  The  tea-kettle 
popped  off  the  fire  into  the  grate  as  Mr.  Williams  had  filled  the 
teapot,  which  fell  off  the  chimney-piece.  Candlesticks,  after  a 
dance  on  the  table,  flew  off,  and  ornaments  from  the  shelves, 
and  bonnets  and  cap-boxes  flung  about  in  the  oddest  manner. 
A  looking-glass  hopped  off  a  dressing-table,  followed  by  combs 
and  brushes  and  several  bottles,  and  a  great  pincushion  has 


382 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


been  remarkably  conspicuous  for  its  incessant  jigs  from  one 
part  to  another.  The  little  girl,  who  is  a  Spaniard,  and  under 
the  care  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Williams,  is  supposed  by  their  friends 
to  be  the  cause  of  it  all,  however  extraordinary  it  may  seem  in 
one  of  her  age,  but  up  to  the  present  time  it  continues  a  mys- 
tery, and  the  modus  operandi  is  invisible." — Morning  Post. 

To  imagine  that  these  extraordinary  effects  were  produced 
by  the  voluntary  agency  of  the  child,  furnishes  one  of  those 
remarkable  instances  of  the  credulity  of  the  skeptical,  to  which 
I  have  referred.  But  when  we  read  a  true  statement  of  the 
effects  involuntarily  exhibited  by  Angelique  Cottin,  we  begin  to 
see  that  it  is  just  possible  the  other  strange  phenomena  may  be 
provided  by  a  similar  agency. 

The  French  Academy  of  Sciences  had  determined,  as  they 
had  formerly  done  fcy  Mesmerism,  that  the  thing  should  not  be 
true.  Monsieur  Arago  was  nonsuited ;  but  although  it  is  ex- 
tremely possible  that  either  the  phenomenon  had  run  its  course 
and  arrived  at  a  natural  termination,  or  that  the  removal  of  the 
girl  to  Paris  had  extinguished  it,  there  appears  no  doubt  that  it 
had  previously  existed. 

Angelique  Cottin  was  a  native  of  La  Perriere,  aged  fourteen, 
when,  on  the  15th  of  January,  1846,  at  eight  o'clock  in  the 
evening,  while  weaving  silk-gloves  at  an  oaken  frame,  in  com- 
pany with  other  girls,  the  frame  began  to  jerk,  and  they  could 
not  by  any  efforts  keep  it  steady.  It  seemed  as  if  it  were  alive, 
and  becoming  alarmed,  they  called  in  the  neighbors,  who  would 
not  believe  them  ;  but  desired  them  to  sit  down  and  go  on  with 
their  work.  Being  timid,  they  went  one  by  one,  and  the  frame 
remained  still  till  Angelique  approached,  when  it  recommenced 
its  movements,  while  she  was  also  attracted  by  the  frame: 
thinking  she  was  bewitched  or  possessed,  her  parents  took  her 
to  the  presbytery  that  the  spirit  might  be  exorcised.  The  cu- 
rate, however,  being  a  sensible  man,  refused  to  do  it,  but  set 
himself,  on  the  contrary,  to  observe  the  phenomenon,  and  being 
perfectly  satisfied  of  the  fact,  he  bade  them  take  her  to  a  phy- 
sician. 

Meanwhile,  the  intensity  of  the  influence,  whatever  it  was, 


THE  POLTERGEIST  OF  THE  GERMANS. 


383 


augmented;  not  only  articles  made  of  oak,  but  all  sorts  of 
things  were  acted  upon  by  it  and  reacted  upon  her,  while  per- 
sons who  were  near  her,  even  without  contact,  frequently  felt 
electric  shocks.  The  effects,  which  were  diminished  when  she 
was  on  a  carpet  or  a  waxed  cloth,  were  most  remarkable  when 
she  was  on  the  bare  earth.  They  sometimes  entirely  ceased  for 
two  or  three  days,  and  then  recommenced.  Metals  were  not 
affected.  Anything  touched  by  her  apron  or  dress  would  fly 
off,  although  a  person  held  it  ;  and  Monsieur  Hebert,  while 
seated  on  a  heavy  tub  or  trough,  was  raised  up  with  it.  In 
short,  the  only  place  she  could  repose  on,  was  a  stone  covered 
with  cork  ;  they  also  kept  her  still  by  isolating  her.  When  she 
was  fatigued  the  effects  diminished.  A  needle  suspended  hori- 
zontally, oscillated  rapidly  with  the  motion  of  her  arm,  without 
contact,  or  remained  fixed,  while  deviating  from  the  magnetic 
direction.  Great  numbers  of  enlightened  medical  and  scien- 
tific men  witnessed  these  phenomena,  and  investigated  them 
with  every  precaution  to  prevent  imposition.  She  was  often 
hurt  by  the  violent  involuntary  movements  she  was*  thrown  into, 
and  was  evidently  afflicted  by  chorea. 

Unfortunately,  her  parents,  poor  and  ignorant,  insisted  much 
against  the  advice  of  the  doctors,  on  exhibiting  her  for  money  ; 
and  under  these  circumstances,  she  was  brought  to  Paris ;  and 
nothing  is  more  probable  than  that  after  the  phenomena  had 
really  ceased,  the  girl  may  have  been  induced  to  simulate  what 
had  originally  been  genuine.  The  thing  avowedly  ceased  alto- 
gether on  the  10th  of  April,  and  there  has  been  no  return  of  it. 

In  1831,  a  young  girl,  also  aged  fourteen,  who  lived  as  under 
nursery-maid  in  a  French  family,  exhibited  the  same  phenom- 
ena, and  when  the  case  of  Angelique  Cottin  was  made  public, 
her  master  published  hers.  He  says  that  things  of  such  an  ex- 
traordinary nature  occurred  as  he  dare  not  repeat,  since  none 
but  an  eye-witness  could  believe  them.  The  thing  lasted  for 
three  years,  and  there  was  ample  time  for  observation. 

In  the  year  1686,  a  man  at  Brussels,  called  Breekmans,  was 
similarly  affected.  A  commission  was  appointed  by  the  magis- 
trates to  investigate  his  condition  ;  and,  being  pronounced  a 


384 


THE  NIGHT- SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


sorcerer,  he  would  have  been  burnt,  had  he  not  luckily  made 

his  escape. 

Many  somnambulic  persons  are  capable  of  giving  an  electric 
shock  ;  and  I  have  met  with  one  person,  not  somnambulic,  who 
informs  me  that  he  has  frequently  been  able  to  do  it  by  an 
effort  of  the  will. 

Dr.  Ennemoser  relates  the  case  of  a  Mademoiselle  Emmerich, 
sister  to  the  professor  of  theology  at  Strasburg,  who  also  pos- 
sessed this  power.  This  young  lady,  who  appears  to  have  been 
a  person  of  very  rare  merit  and  endowments,  was  afflicted  with 
a  long  and  singular  malady,  originating  in  a  fright,  in  the  course 
of  which  she  exhibited  many  very  curious  phenomena,  having 
fallen  into  a  state  of  natural  somnambulism,  accompanied  by  a 
high  degree  of  lucidity.  Her  body  became  so  surcharged  with 
electricity,  that  it  was  necessary  to  her  relief  to  discharge  it ; 
and  she  sometimes  imparted  a  complete  battery  of  shocks  to 
her  brother  and  hei  physician,  or  whoever  was  near  her,  and 
that  frequently  when  they  did  not  touch  her.  Professor  Em- 
merich mentions  also  that  she  sent  him  a  smart  shock,  one  day, 
when  he  was  several  rooms  off.  He  started  up  and  rushed  into 
her  chamber,  where  she  was  in  bed ;  and  as  soon  as  she  saw 
him  she  said,  laughing :  "  Ah,  you  felt  it,  did  you  V*  Made- 
moiselle Emmerich's  illness  terminated  in  death. 

Cotugno,  a  surgeon,  relates  that,  having  touched  with  his 
scalpel  the  intercostal  nerve  of  a  mouse  that  had  bitten  his  leg, 
he  received  an  electric  shock;  and  where  the  torpedo  abounds, 
the  fishermen,  in  pouring  water  over  the  fish  they  have  caught 
for  the  purpose  of  washing  them,  know  if  one  is  among  them 
by  the  shock  they  sustain. 

A  very  extraordinary  circumstance,  which  we  may  possibly 
attribute  to  some  such  influence  as  the  above,  occurred  at  Ram- 
bouillet  in  November,  1846.  The  particulars  are  furnished  by 
a  gentleman  residing  on  the  spot  at  the  time,  and  were  pub- 
lished by  the  Baron  Dupotel  —  who,  however,  attempts  no 
explanation  of  the  mystery  : — 

One  morning  some  travelling  merchants,  or  pedlars,  came  to 
the  door  of  a  farmhouse,  belonging  to  a  man  named  Bottel, 


THE  POLTERGEIST  OF  THE  GERMANS. 


335 


and  asked  for  some  bread,  which  the  maid-servant  gave  them, 
and  they  went  away.  Subsequently  one  of  the  party  returned 
to  ask  for  more,  and  was  refused.  The  man,  I  believe,  ex- 
pressed some  resentment  and  uttered  vague  threats,  but  she 
would  not  give  him  anything  and  he  departed.  That  night  at 
supper  the  plates  began  to  dance  and  roll  off  the  table,  without 
any  visible  cause,  and  several  other  unaccountable  phenomena 
occurred ;  and  the  girl  going  to  the  door  and  chancing  to  place 
herself  just  where  the  pedlar  had  stood,  she  was  seized  with 
convulsions  and  an  extraordinary  rotatory  motion.  The  carter 
who  was  standing  by  laughed  at  her,  and  out  of  bravado  placed 
himself  on  the  same  spot,  when  he  felt  almost  suffocated,  and 
was  so  unable  to  command  his  movements  that  he  was  over- 
turned into  a  large  pool  in  front  of  the  house. 

Upon  this  they  rushed  to  the  cure  of  the  parish  for  assistance  ; 
but  he  had  scarcely  said  a  prayer  or  two  before  he  was  attacked 
in  the  same  manner,  though  in  his  own  house ;  and  his  furni- 
ture beginning  to  oscillate  and  crack  as  if  it  were  bewitched, 
the  poor  people  were  frightened  out  of  their  wits. 

By-and-by  the  phenomena  intermitted,  and  they  hoped  all 
was  over ;  but  presently  it  began  again,  and  this  occurred  more 
than  once  before  it  subsided  wholly. 

On  the  8th  December,  1836,  at  Stuttgard,  Carl  Fischer,  a  - 
baker's  boy,  aged  seventeen,  of  steady  habits  and  good  charac- 
ter, was  fixed  with  a  basket  on  his  shoulders,  in  some  unac- 
countable way,  in  front  of  his  master's  house.  He  foresaw  the 
thing  was  to  happen  when  he  went  out  with  his  bread  very 
early  in  the  morning ;  earnestly  wished  that  the  day  was  over, 
and  told  his  companion  that  if  he  could  only  cross  the  threshold, 
on  his  return,  he  should  escape  it.  It  was  about  six  when  he 
did  return;  and  his  master,  hearing  a  fearful  noise  which  he 
could  not  describe  —  "  as  if  proceeding  from  a  multitude  of  be- 
ings"— looked  out  of  the  window,  where  he  saw  Carl  violently 
struggling  and  fighting  with  his  apron,  though  his  feet  were 
immoveably  fixed  to  one  spot.  A  hissing  sound  proceeded 
from  his  mouth  and  nose,  and  a  voice,  which  was  neither  his 
nor  that  of  any  person  present,  was  heard  to  cry,  "  Stand  fast, 

17 


ns6 


THE  NIGHT -  SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


Carl !"  The  master  says  that  he  could  not  have  believed  such 
a  thing ;  and  he  was  so  alarmed  that  he  did  not  venture  into 
the  street,  where  numerous  persons  were  assembled.  The  boy 
said  he  must  remain  there  till  eleven  o'clock ;  and  the  police 
kept  guard  over  him  till  that  time,  as  the  physician  said  he 
must  not  be  interfered  with,  and  the  people  sought  to  push  him 
from  the  spot.  When  the  time  had  expired,  he  was  carried  to 
the  hospital,  where  he  seemed  exceedingly  exhausted  and  fell 
into  a  profound  sleep. 

I  meet  with  numerous  extraordinary  records  of  a  preternatu- 
ral ringing  of  all  the  bells  in  a  house  ;  sometimes  occurring  pe- 
riodically for  a  considerable  time,  and  continuing  after  precau- 
tions have  been  taken  which  precluded  the  possibility  of  trick 
or  deception,  the  wires  being  cut,  and  vigilant  eyes  watching 
them  ;  and  yet  they  rung  on,  by  day  or  night,  just  the  same. 

It  is  certainly  very  difficult  to  conceive,  but  at  the  same  time 
it  is  not  impossible,  that  such  strange  phenomena  as  that  of  the 
Stockwell  ghost,  and  many  similar  ones,  may  be  the  manifesta- 
tions of  some  extraordinary  electrical  influence ;  but  there  are 
other  cases  of  poltergeist  which  it  is  impossible  to  attribute  to 
the  same  cause,  since  they  are  accompanied  by  evident  mani- 
festations of  will  and  intelligence.  Such  was  the  instance  re- 
lated in  Southey's  Life  of  Wesley,  which  occurred  in  the  year 
1716,  beginning  with  a  groaning,  and  subsequently  proceeding 
to  all  manner  of  noises,  lifting  of  latches,  clattering  of  windows, 
knockings  of  a  most  mysterious  kind,  &c,  &c.  The  family 
were  not  generally  frightened,  but  the  young  children,  when 
asleep,  showed  symptoms  of  great  terror.  This  annoyance 
lasted,  I  think,  two  or  three  months,  and  then  ceased.  As  in 
most  of  these  cases,  the  dog  was  extremely  frightened,  and  hid 
himself  when  the  visitations  commenced. 

In  the  year  1838,  a  circumstance  of  the  same  kind  occurred 
in  Paris,  in  the  Rue  St.  Honore  ;  and  not  very  long  ago  thera 
was  one  in  Caithness,  in  which  most  unaccountable  circum- 
stances transpired.  Among  the  rest,  stones  were  flung,  which 
never  hit  people,  but  fell  at  their  feet,  in  rooms  perfectly  closed 
on  all  sides.    A  gentleman  who  witnessed  these  extraordinary 


THE  POLTERGEIST  OF  THE  GERMANS. 


387 


phenomena,  related  the  whole  story  to  an  advocate  of  my  ac- 
quaintance, who  assured  me  that,  however  impossible  he  found 
it  to  credit  such  things,  he  should  certainly  place  entire  reliance 
on  that  gentleman's  word  in  any  other  case. 

Then  there  is  the  famous  story  of  the  drummer  of  Ted- 
worth  ;*  and  the  persecution  of  Professor  Schuppart,  at  Gies- 
sen,  in  Upper  Hesse,  which  continued,  with  occasional  intermis- 
sion, for  six  years.  This  affair  began  with  a  violent  knocking 
at  the  door  one  night;  next  day  stones  were  sent  whizzing 
through  closed  rooms  in  all  directions,  so  that,  although  no  one 
was  struck,  the  windows  were  all  broken  ;  and  no  sooner  were 
new  panes  put  in,  than  they  were  broken  again.  He  was  per- 
secuted with  slaps  on  the  face,  by  day  and  by  night,  so  that  he 
could  get  no  rest ;  and  when  two  persons  were  appointed  by 
the  authorities  to  sit  by  his  bed  to  watch  him,  they  got  the  slaps 
also.  When  he  was  reading  at  his  desk,  his  lamp  would  sud- 
denly rise  up  and  remove  to  the  other  end  of  the  room  —  not  as 
if  thrown,  but  evidently  carried.  His  books  were  torn  to  pieces 
and  flung  at  his  feet ;  and  when  he  was  lecturing,  this  mischiev- 
ous sprite  would  tear  out  the  leaf  he  was  reading ;  and  it  is 
very  remarkable,  that  the  only  thing  that  seemed  available  as  a 
protection,  was  a  drawn  sword  brandished  over  his  head  by 
himself  or  others,  which  was  one  of  the  singularities  attending 
the  case  of  the  drummer  of  Ted  worth.  Schuppart  narrated  all 
these  circumstances  in  his  public  lectures,  and  nobody  ever  dis- 
puted the  facts. 

A  remarkable  case  of  this  sort  occurred  in  the  year  1670,  at 
Keppock,  near  Glasgow.  There,  also,  stones  were  thrown 
which  hit  nobody,  but  the  annoyance  only  continued  eight  days; 
and  there  are  several  more  to  be  found  recorded  in  works  of 
that  period.  The  disturbance  that  happened  in  the  house  of 
Gilbert  Cambell,  at  Glenluce,  excited  considerable  notice. 
Here,  as  elsewhere,* stones  were  thrown ;  but,  as  in  most  simi- 

*  There  was  also  a  remarkable  case  of  this  sort  at  Mr.  Chaves,  in  Devonshire, 
in  the  year  1810,  where  affidavits  were  made  before  the  magistrates  attesting  the 
facts,  and  large  rewards  offered  for  discovery,  but  in  vain.  The  phenomena  con- 
tinued several  months,  and  the  spiritual  agent  was  frequently  seen  in  the  form 
of  some  strange  animal. 


388 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


lar  instances  I  meet  with,  no  human  being  was  damaged  —  the 
license  of  these  spirits,  or  goblins,  or  whatever  they  be,  seeming 
to  extend  no  further  than  worrying  and  tormenting  their  vic- 
tims. In  this  case,  however,  the  spirit  spoke  to  them,  though 
he  was  never  seen.  The  annoyance  commenced  in  November, 
?f  the  year  1654,  I  think,  and  continued  till  April,  when  there 
was  some  intermission  till  July,  when  it  recommenced.  The 
itess  of  the  family  from  the  things  destroyed  was  ruining ;  for 
their  household  goods  and  chattels  were  rendered  useless,  their 
food  was  polluted  and  spoiled,  and  their  very  clothes  cut  to 
pieces  while  on  their  backs,  by  invisible  hands ;  and  it  was  in 
vain  that  all  the  ministers  about  the  country  assembled  to  exor- 
cise this  troublesome  spirit,  for  whoever  was  there  the  thing 
continued  exactly  the  same. 

At  length  poor  Cambell  applied  to  the  synod  of  presbyters 
for  advice ;  and  a  meeting  was  convened  in  October,  1655,  and 
a  solemn  day  of  humiliation  was  imposed  through  the  whole 
bounds  of  the  presbytery,  for  the  sake  of  the  afflicted  family. 
Whether  it  was  owing  to  this  or  not,  there  ensued  an  allevia- 
tion from  that  time  till  April,  and  from  April  till  August  they 
were  entirely  free,  and  hoped  all  was  over ;  but  then  it  began 
again  worse  than  ever,  and  they  were  dreadfully  tormented 
through  the  autumn ;  after  which  the  disturbance  ceased,  and 
although  the  family  lived  in  the  house  many  years  afterward, 
nothing  of  the  sort  ever  happened  again. 

There  was  another  famous  case,  which  occurred  at  a  place 
called  Ring-Croft,  in  Kirkcudbright,  in  the  year  1695.  The 
afflicted  family  bore  the  name  of  Mackie.  In  this  instance,  the 
stones  did  sometimes  hit  them,  and  they  were  beaten  as  if  by 
staves ;  they,  as  well  as  strangers  who  came  to  the  house,  were 
lifted  off  the  ground  by  their  clothes ;  their  bed  coverings  were 
taken  off  their  beds  ;  things  were  visibly  carried  about  the  house 
by  travisible  hands ;  several  people  were  hurt,  even  to  the  effu- 
sion of  blood,  by  stones  and  blows ;  there  were  fire-balls  seen 
about  the  house,  which  were  several  times  ignited ;  people, 
both  of  the  family  and  others,  felt  themselves  grasped  as  if  by 
a  hand  ;  then  there  was  groaning,  crying,  whistling,  and  a  voice 


THE  POLTERGEIST  OF  THE  GERMANS. 


389 


that  frequently  spoke  to  them.  Crowds  of  people  went  to  the 
house;  but  the  thing  continued  just  the  same  whether  there 
were  many  or  few,  and  sometimes  the  whole  building  shook  as 
if  it  were  coming  down. 

A  day  of  humiliation  was  appointed  in  this  case  also,  but 
without  the  least  effect.  The  disturbance  commenced  in  Feb- 
ruary, and  ended  on  the  1st  of  May.  Numberless  people  wit- 
nessed the  phenomenon,  and  the  account  of  it  is  attested  by  four- 
teen ministers  and  gentlemen. 

The  same  sort  of  thing  occurred  in  the  year  1659,  in  a  place 
inhabited  by  an  evangelical  bishop,  called  Schlotterbeck.  It 
began  in  the  same  manner,  by  throwing  of  stones  and  other 
things,  many  of  which  came  through  the  roof,  insomuch  that 
they  believed  at  first  that  some  animal  was  concealed  there. 
However,  nothing  could  be  found,  and  the  invisible  guest  soon 
proceeded  to  other  annoyances  similar  to  those  above  men- 
tioned ;  and  though  they  could  not  see  him,  his  footsteps  were 
for  ever  heard  about  the  house.  At  length,  wearied  out,  the 
bishop  applied  to  the  government  for  aW  ;  and  they  sent  him  a 
company  of  soldiers  to  guard  the  house  by  day  and  night,  out 
of  which  he  and  his  family  retired.  But  the  goblin  cared  no 
more  for  the  soldiers  than  it  had  done  for  the  city  watch ;  the 
thing  continued  without  intermission,  whoever  was  there,  till  it 
ceased  of  its  own  accord.  There  was  a  house  at  Aix-la-Chapelle 
that  was  for  several  years  quite  uninhabitable  from  a  similar 
cause. 

I  could  mention  many  other  cases,  and,  as  I  have  said  before, 
they  occur  in  all  countries ;  but  these  will  suffice  as  specimens 
of  the  class.  It  is  in  vain  for  people  who  were  not  on  the  spot 
to  laugh,  and  assert  that  these  were  the  mischievous  tricks  of 
'servants  or  others,  when  those  who  were  there,  and  who  had 
such  a  deep  interest  in  unravelling  the  mystery,  and  such 
abundance  of  time  and  opportunity  for  doing  it,  could  find  no 
solution  whatever.  In  many  of  the  above  cases,  the  cattle  were 
unloosed,  the  horses  were  turned  out  of  their  stables,  and  uni- 
formly all  the  animals  in  the  way  exhibited  great  terror,  sweat- 
ing and  trembling,  while  the  visitation  continued. 


390  THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


Since  we  can  not  but  believe  that  man  forms  but  one  class  in 
an  immense  range  of  existences,  do  not  these  strange  occur- 
rences suggest  the  idea  that  occasionally  some  individual  out  of 
this  gamut  of  beings  comes  into  rapport  with  us,  or  crosses  our 
path  like  a  comet,  and  that,  while  certain  conditions  last,  it  can 
hover  about  us,  and  play  these  puckish,  mischievous  tricks,  till 
the  charm  is  broken,  and  then  it  re-enters  its  own  sphere,  and 
we  are  cognisant  of  it  no  more  ! 

But  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  examples  of  this  kind  of 
annoyance  is  that  which  occurred,  in  the  year  1806,  in  the  cas- 
tle of  Prince  Hohenlohe,  in  Silesia.  The  account  is  given  at 
length  by  Councillor  Halm,  of  Ingelfingen,  who  witnessed  the 
circumstances  ;  and  in  consequence  of  the  various  remarks  that 
have  been  since  made  on  the  subject,  in  different  publications, 
he  has  repeatedly  reasserted  the  facts  in  letters,  which  have 
been  printed  and  laid  before  the  public.  I  can  not,  therefore, 
see  what  right  we  have  to  disbelieve  a  man  of  honor  and  char- 
acter, as  he  is  said  to  be,  merely  because  the  circumstances  he 
narrates  are  unaccountable,  more  especially  as  the  story,  strange 
as  it  is,  by  no  means  stands  alone  in  the  annals  of  demonology. 
The  following  details  were  written  down  at  the  time  the  events 
occurred,  and  they  were  communicated  by  Councillor  Hahn  to 
Dr.  Kerner  in  the  year  1828  : — 

"  After  the  campaign  of  the  Prussians  against  the  French,  in 
the  year  1806,  the  reigning  prince  of  Hohenlohe  gave  orders 
to  Councillor  Hahn,  who  was  in  his  service,  to  proceed  to 
Slawensick,  and  there  to  wait  his  return.  His  serene  highness 
advanced  from  Leignitz  toward  Jiis  principality,  and  Hahn  also 
commenced  his  journey  toward  Upper  Silesia  on  the  19th  No- 
vember. At  the  same  period,  Charles  Kern,  of  Kuntzlau,  who 
had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  French,  being  released  on  par- 
role,  and  arriving  at  Leignitz  in  an  infirm  condition,  he  was 
allowed  to  spend  some  time  with  Hahn,  while  awaiting  his  ex- 
change. 

"Hahn  and  Kern  had  been  friends  in  their  youth,  and  their 
destinies  having  ^rought  them  both  at  this  time  into  the  Prus- 
sian states,  they  were  lodged  together  in  the  same  apartment 


THE  POLTERGEIST  OF  THE  GERMANS. 


391 


of  the  castle,  which  was  one  on  the  first  floor,  forming  an  an- 
gle at  the  back  of  the  building,  one  side  looking  toward  the 
north  and  the  other  to  the  east.  On  the  right  of  the  door  of 
this  room  was  a  glass  door,  which  led  into  a  chamber  divided 
from  those  which  followed  by  a  wainscot  partition.  The  door 
in  this  wainscot,  which  communicated  to  those  adjoining  rooms, 
was  entirely  closed  up,  because  in  them  all  sorts  of  household 
utensils  were  kept.  Neither  in  this  chamber,  nor  in  the  sitting- 
room  which  preceded  it,  was  there  any  opening  whatever  which 
could  furnish  the  means  of  communication  from  without;  nor 
was  there  anybody  in  the  castle  besides  the  two  friends,  except 
the  prince's  two  coachmen  and  Hahn's  servant.  The  whole 
party  were  fearless  people ;  and  as  for  Hahn  and  Kern,  they 
believed  in  nothing  less  than  ghosts  or  witches,  nor  had  any 
previous  experience  induced  them  to  turn  their  thoughts  in  that 
direction.  Hahn,  during  his  collegiate  life,  had  been  much 
given  to  philosophy  —  had  listened  to  Fichte,  and  earnestly 
studied  the  writings  of  Kant.  The  result  of  his  reflections  was 
a  pure  materialism  ;  and  he  looked  upon  created  man,  not  as 
an  aim,  but  merely  as  a  means  to  a  yet  undeveloped  end. 
These  opinions  he  has  since  changed,  like  many  others  who 
think  very  differently  in  their  fortieth  year  to  what  they  did  in 
their  twentieth.  The  particulars  here  given  are  necessary 
in  order  to  obtain  credence  for  the  following  extraordinary 
narrative ;  and  to  establish  the  fact  that  the  phenomena  were 
not  merely  accepted  by  ignorant  superstition,  but  coolly  and 
courageously  investigated  by  enlightened  minds.  During  the 
first  days  of  their  residence^  in  the  castle,  the  two  friends, 
living  together  in  solitude,  amused  their  long  evenings  with 
the  works  of  Schiller,  of  whom  they  were  both  great  admirers ; 
and  Hahn  usually  read  aloud.  Three  days  had  thus  passed 
quietly  away,  when,  as  they  were  sitting  at  the  table,  which 
stood  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  about  nine  o'clock  in  the 
evening,  their  reading  was  interrupted  by  a  small  shower  of 
lime  which  fell  around  them.  They  looked  at  the  ceiling,  con- 
cluding it  must  have  come  thence,  but  could  perceive  no  abra- 
ded parts  ;  and  while  they  were  yet  seeking  to  ascertain  whence 


392 


THE  NIGHT- SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


the  lime  had  proceeded,  there  suddenly  fell  several  larger  pieces, 
which  were  quite  cold,  and  appeared  as  if  they  had  belonged  to 
the  external  wall.  At  length,  concluding  the  lime  must  have 
fallen  from  some  part  of  the  wall,  giving  up  further  inquiry,  they 
went  to  bed,  and  slept  quietly  till  morning,  when,  on  awaking, 
they  were  somewhat  surprised  at  the  quantity  which  strewed 
the  floor,  more  especially  as  they  could  still  discover  no  part  of 
the  walls  or  ceiling  from  which  it  could  have  fallen.  But  they 
thought  no  more  of  the  matter  till  evening,  when,  instead  of  the 
lime  falling  as  before,  it  was  thrown,  and  several  pieces  struck 
Hahn.  At  the  same  time  they  heard  heavy  blows,  sometimes 
below,  and  sometimes  over  their  heads,  like  the  sound  of  dis- 
tant guns ;  still,  attributing  these  sounds  to  natural  causes,  they 
went  to  bed  as  usual,  but  the  uproar  prevented  their  sleeping, 
and  each  accused  the  other  of  occasioning  it  by  kicking  with 
his  feet  against  the  foot-board  of  his  bed,  till,  finding  that  the 
noise  continued  when  they  both  got  out  and  stood  together  in 
the  middle  of  the  room,  they  were  satisfied  that  this  was  not  the 
case.  On  the  following  evening,  a  third  noise  was  added,  which 
resembled  the  faint  and  distant  beating  of  a  drum.  Upon  this, 
they  requested  the  governess  of  the  castle  to  send  them  the  key 
of  the  apartments  above  and  below,  which  was  brought  them 
by  her  son  ;  and  while  he  and  Kern  went  to  make  their  inves- 
tigations, Hahn  remained  in  their  own  room.  Above,  they 
found  an  empty  room ;  below,  a  kitchen.  They  knocked,  but 
the  noise  they  made  was  very  different  to  that  which  Hahn  con- 
tinued all  the  while  to  hear  around  him.  When  they  returned, 
Hahn  said,  jestingly,  'The  place  is  haunted!'  On  this  night, 
when  they  went  to  bed,  with  a  light  burning,  they  heard  what 
seemed  like  a  person  walking  about  the  room  with  slippers  on, 
and  a  stick,  with  which  he  struck  the  floor  as  he  moved  step  by 
step.  Hahn  continued  to  jest,  and  Kern  to  laugh,  at  the  odd- 
ness  of  these  circumstances,  for  some  time,  when  they  both,  as 
usual,  fell  asleep,  neither  in  the  slightest  degree  disturbed  by 
these  events,  nor  inclined  to  attribute  them  to  any  supernatural 
cause.  But  on  the  following  evening  the  affair  became  more 
inexplicable  :  various  articles  in  the  room  were  thrown  about ; 


THE  POLTERGEIST  OF  THE  GERMANS.  393 

knives,  forks,  brushes,  caps,  slippers,  padlocks,  funnel,  snuffers, 
soap  —  everything,  in  short,  that  was  moveable  ;  while  lights 
darted  from  the  corners,  and  everything  was  in  confusion  ;  at 
the  same  time,  the  lime  fell  and  the  blows  continued.  Upon 
this,  the  two  friends  called  up  the  servants,  Knittel,  the  castle 
watch,  and  whoever  else  was  at  hand,  to  be  witnesses  of  these 
mysterious  operations.  In  the  morning  all  was  quiet,  and  gen- 
erally continued  so  till  after  midnight.  One  evening,  Kern 
going  into  the  chamber  to  fetch  something,  and  hearing  an 
uproar  that  almost  drove  him  backward  to  the  door,  Hahn 
caught  up  the  light,  and  both  rushed  into  the  room,  where  they 
found  a  large  piece  of  wood  lying  close  to  the  wainscot.  But 
supposing  this  to  be  the  cause  of  the  noise,  who  had  set  it 
in  motion  ?  For  Kern  was  sure  the  door  was  shut,  even  while 
the  noise  was  making  ;  neither  had  there  been  any  wood  in  the 
room.  Frequently,  before  their  eyes,  the  knives  and  snuffers 
rose  from  the  table,  and  fell,  after  some  minutes,  to  the  ground  ; 
and  Hahn's  large  shears  were  once  lifted  in  this  manner  between 
him  and  one  of  the  prince's  cooks,  and  falling  to  the  ground, 
stuck  into  the  floor.  As  some  nights,  however,  passed  quite 
quietly,  Hahn  was  determined  not  to  leave  the  rooms;  but 
when,  for  three  weeks,  the  disturbance  was  so  constant  that  they 
could  get  no  rest,  they  resolved  on  removing  their  beds  into  the 
large  room  above,  in  hopes  of  once  more  enjoying  a  little  quiet 
sleep.  Their  hopes  were  vain  —  the  thumping  continued  as 
before  ;  and  not  only  so,  but  articles  flew  about  the  room  which 
they  were  quite  sure  they  had  left  below.  1  They  may  fling  as 
they  will,'  cried  Hahn,  1  sleep  I  must while  Kern  began  to 
undress,  pondering  on  these  matters  as  he  walked  up  and  down 
the  room.  Suddenly  Hahn  saw  him  stand,  as  if  transfixed,  be- 
fore the  looking-glass  on  which  he  had  accidentally  cast  his  eyes, 
He  had  so  stood  for  some  time,  when  he  was  seized  with  a  vio- 
lent trembling,  and  turned  from  the  mirror  with  his  face  as 
white  as  death.  Hahn,  fancying  the  cold  of  an  uninhabited 
room  had  seized  him,  hastened  to  throw  a  cloak  over  him,  when 
Kern,  who  was  naturally  very  courageous,  recovered  himself, 
and  related,  though  with  trembling  lips,  that  as  he  had  accident- 

17* 


394 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


ally  looked  in  the  glass,  he  had  seen  a  white  female  figure  look- 
ing out  of  it ;  she  was  in  front  of  his  own  image,  which  he  dis- 
tinctly saw  behind  her.  At  first  he  could  not  believe  his  eyes  ; 
he  thought  it  must  be  fancy,  and  for  that  reason  he  had  stood 
so  long ;  but  when  he  saw  that  the  eyes  of  the  figure  moved, 
and  looked  into  his,  a  shudder  had  seized  him,  and  he  had 
turned  away.  Hahn,  upon  this,  advanced  with  firm  steps  to  the 
front  of  the  mirror,  and  called  upon  the  apparition  to  show 
itself  to  him  ;  but  he  saw  nothing,  although  he  remained  a  quar- 
ter of  an  hour  before  the  glass,  and  frequently  repeated  his  ex- 
hortation. Kern  then  related  that  the  features  of  the  apparition 
were  very  old,  but  not  gloomy  or  morose ;  the  expression  was 
that  of  indifference ;  but  the  face  was  very  pale,  and  the  head 
was  wrapped  in  a  cloth  which  left  only  the  features  visible. 

"  By  this  time  it  was  four  o'clock  in  the  morning ;  sleep  was 
banished  from  their  eyes,  and  they  resolved  to  return  to  the 
lower  room  and  have  their  beds  brought  back  again  :  but  the 
people  who  were  sent  to  fetch  them  returned,  declaring  they 
could  not  open  the  door,  although  it  did  not  appear  to  be  fast- 
ened. They  were  sent  back  again ;  but  a  second  and  a  third 
time  they  returned  with  the  same  answer.  Then  Hahn  went, 
himself,  and  opened  it  with  the  greatest  ease.  The  four  ser- 
vants, however,  solemnly  declared  that  all  their  united  strength 
could  make  no  impression  on  it. 

"  In  this  way  a  month  had  elapsed  :  the  strange  events  at  the 
castle  had  got  spread  abroad ;  and  among  others  who  desired 
to  convince  themselves  of  the  facts  were  two  Bavarian  officers 
of  dragoons,  namely,  Captain  Cornet  and  Lieutenant  Magerle, 
of  the  regiment  of  Minuci.  Magerle  offering  to  remain  in  the 
room  alone,  the  others  left  him ;  but  scarcely  had  they  passed 
into  the  next  apartment,  when  they  heard  Magerle  storming 
like  a  man  in  a  passion,  and  cutting  away  at  the  tables  and 
chairs  with  his  sabre,  whereupon  the  captain  thought  it  advisa- 
ble to  return,  in  order  to  rescue  the  furniture  from  his  rage. 
They  found  the  door  shut,  but  he  opened  it  on  their  summons, 
and  related,  in  great  excitement,  that  as  soon  as  they  Jiad  quit- 
ted the  room,  some  cursed  thing  had  begun  to  fling  lime  and 


THE  POLTERGEIST  OF  THE  GERMANS.  305 


other  matters  at  him,  and,  having  examined  every  part  of  the 
room  without  being  able  to  discover  the  agent  of  the  mischief, 
he  had  fallen  into  a  rage  and  cut  madly  about  him. 

"  The  party  now  passed  the  rest  of  the  evening  together  in 
the  room,  and  the  two  Bavarians  closely  watched  Haha  and 
Kern  in  order  to  satisfy  themselves  that  the  mystery  was  no 
trick  of  theirs.  All  at  once,  as  they  were  quietly  sitting  at  the 
table,  the  snuffers  rose  into  the  air  and  fell  again  to  the  ground 
behind  Magerle,  and  a  leaden  ball  flew  at  Hahn  and  hit  him 
upon  the  breast,  and  presently  afterward  they  heard  a  noise  at 
the  glass-door,  as  if  somebody  had  struck  his  fist  through  it, 
together  with  a  sound  of  falling  glass.  On  investigation  they 
found  the  door  entire,  but  a  broken  drinking-glass  on  the  floor. 
By  this  time  the  Bavarians  were  convinced,  and  they  retired 
from  the  room  to  see'k  repose  in  one  more  peaceful. 

"  Among  other  things,  the  following,  which  occurred  to 
Hahn,  is  remarkable.  One  evening  about  eight  o'clock,  being 
about  to  shave  himself,  the  implements  for  the  purpose,  which 
were  lying  on  a  pyramidal  stand  in  a  corner  of  the  room,  flew 
at  him,  one  after  the  other  —  the  soap-box,  the  razor,  the  brush, 
and  the  soap  —  and  fell  at  his  feet,  although  he  was  standing 
several  paces  from  the  pyramid.  He  and  Kern,  who  was  sit- 
ting at  the  table,  laughed,  for  they  were  now  so  accustomed  to 
these  events  that  they  only  made  them  subjects  of  diversion. 
In  the  meantime,  Hahn  poured  some  water,  which  had  been 
standing  on  the  stove,  in  a  basin,  observing,  as  he  dipped  his 
finger  into  it,  that  it  was  of  a  nice  heat  for  shaving.  He  seated 
himself  before  the  table  and  strapped  his  razor,  but  when  he 
attempted  to  prepare  the  lather,  the  water  was  clean  vanished 
out  of  the  basin.  Another  time,  Hahn  was  awakened  by  gob- 
lins throwing  at  him  a  squeezed-up  piece  of  sheet-lead  in 
which  tobacco  had  been  wrapped,  and  when  he  stooped  to  pick 
it  up,  the  self-same  piece  was  flung  at  him  again.  When  this 
was  repeated  a  third  time,  Hahn  flung  a  heavy  stick  at  his 
invisible  assailant. 

"  Dorfel,  the  book-keeper,  was  frequently  a  witness  to  these 
strange  events.    He  once  laid  his  cap  on  the  table  by  the 


306 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


stove ;  when,  being  about  to  depart,  he  sought  for  it,  it  had 
vanished.  Four  or  five  times  he  examined  the  table  in  vain  ; 
presently  afterward  he  saw  it  lying  exactly  where  he  had  placed 
it  when  he  came  in.  On  the  same  table,  Knittel  having  once 
placed  his  cap  and  drawn  himself  a  seat,  suddenly,  although 
there  was  nobody  near  the  table,  he  saw  the  cap  flying  through 
the  room  to  his  feet,  where  it  fell. 

H  Hahn  now  determined  to  find  »out  the  secret  himself,  and 
for  this  purpose  seated  himself,  with  two  lights  before  him,  in 
a  position  where  he  could  see  the  whole  of  the  room  and  all 
the  doors  and  windows  it  contained ; — but  the  same  things  oc- 
curred, even  when  Kern  was  out,  the  servants  in  the  stables, 
and  nobody  in  the  room  but  himself;  and  the  snuffers  were  as 
usual  flung  about,  although  the  closest  observation  could  not 
detect  by  whom. 

"  The  forest-master,  Radzensky,  spent  a  night  in  the  room, 
but,  although  the  two  friends  slept,  he  could  get  no  rest.  He 
was  bombarded  without  intermission,  and  in  the  morning  his 
bed  was  found  full  of  all  manner  of  household  articles. 

"  One  morning,  in  spite  of  all  the  drumming  and  flinging, 
Hahn  was  determined  to  sleep  ;  but  a  heavy  blow  on  the  wall 
close  to  his  bed  soon  awoke  him  from  his  slumbers.  A  second 
time  he  went  to  sleep,  and  was  awaked  by  a  sensation  as  if 
some  person  had  dipped  his  finger  in  water  and  was  sprinkling 
his  face  with  it.  He  pretended  to  sleep  again,  while  he  watched 
Kern  and  Knittel,  who  were  sitting  at  the  table ;  the  sensation 
of  sprinkling  returned,  but  he  could  find  no  water  on  his  face.' 

"  About  this  time,  Hahn  had  occasion  to  make  a  journey  as 
far  as  Breslau  ;  and  when  he  returned  he  heard  the  strangest 
story  of  all.  In  order  not  to  be  alone  in  this  mysterious  cham- 
ber, Kern  had  engaged  Hahn's  servant,  a  man  of  about  forty 
years  of  age,  and  of  entire  singleness  of  character,  to  stay  with 
him.  One  night  as  Kern  lay  in  his  bed,  and  this  man  was 
standing  near  the  glass-door  in  conversation  with  him,  to  his 
utter  amazement  he  beheld  a  jug  of  beer,  which  stood  on  a 
table  in  the  room  at  some  distance  from  him,  slowly  lifted  to  a 
height  of  about  three  feet,  and  the  contents  poured  into  a 


THE  POLTERGEIST  OF  THE  GERMANS.  397 


glass  that  was  standing  there  also,  until  the  latto?  wns  hnlf 
full.  The  jug  was  then  gently  replaced,  and  the  glass  lifted 
and  emptied  as  by  some  one  drinking  ;  while  John,  the  servant, 
exclaimed  in  terrified  surprise,  'Lord  Jesus!  it  swallows!' 
The  glass  was  quietly  replaced,  and  not  a  drop  of  beer  was  to 
be  found  on  the  floor.  Hahn  was  about  to  require  an  oath  of 
John  in  confirmation  of  this  fact;  but  forbore,  seeincr  how 
ready  the  man  was  to  take  one,  and  satisfied  of  the  truth  of  the 
relation. 

"  One  night  Knetsch,  an  inspector  of  the  works,  passed  the 
night  with  the  two  friends,  and  in  spite  of  the  unintermitt  ing 
flinging  they  all  three  went  to  bed.  There  were  lights  in  the 
room,  and  presently  all  three  saw  two  napkins,  in  the  middle 
of  the  room,  rise  slowly  up  to  the  ceiling,  and,  having  there 
spread  themselves  out,  flutter  down  again.  The  china  bowl  of 
a  pipe  belonging  to  Kern  flew  about  and  was  broken.  Knives 
and  forks  were  flung,  and  at  last  one  of  the  latter  fell  on  Halm's 
head,  though  fortunately  with  the  handle  downward  :  and  hav- 
ing now  endured  this  annoyance  for  two  months,  it  was  unani- 
mously resolved  to  abandon  this  mysterious  chamber,  for  this 
night  at  all  events.  John  and  Kern  took  up  one  of  the  beds 
and  carried  it  into  the  opposite  room,  but  they  were  no  sooner 
gone  than  a  pitcher  for  holding  chalybeate-water  flew  to  the 
feet  of  the  two  who  remained  behind,  although  no  door  was 
open,  and  a  brass  candlestick  was  flung  to  the  ground.  In  the 
opposite  room  the  night  passed  quietly,  although  some  sounds 
still  issued  from  the  forsaken  chamber.  After  this  there  was 
a  cessation  to  these  strange  proceedings,  and  nothing  more 
remarkable  occurred,  with  tttfe  exception  of  the  following  cir- 
cumstance. Some  weeks  after  the  above-mentioned  removal, 
as  Hahn  was  returning  home  and  crossing  the  bridge  that  leads 
to  the  castle-gate,  he  heard  the  foot  of  a  dog  behind  him.  He 
looked  round,  and  called  repeatedly  on  the  name  of  a  gray- 
hound  that  was  much  attached  to  him,  thinking  it  might  be  her; 
but,  although  he  still  heard  the  foot,  even  when  he  ascended 
the  stairs,  as  he  could  see  nothing,  he  concluded  it  was  an  illu- 
sion.   Scarcely,  however,  had  he  set  his  foot  within  the  room, 


398 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


than  Kern  advanced  and  took  the  door  out  of  his  hand,  at  the 
same  time  calling  the  dog  by  name,  —  immediately  adding, 
however,  that  he  thought  he  had  seen  the  dog,  but  that  he  had 
no  sooner  called  her  than  she  disappeared.  Halm  then  inquired 
if  he  had  really  seen  the  dog.  *  Certainly  I  did,'  replied  Kern, 
'  she  was  close  behind  you  —  half  within  the  door — and  that 
was  the  reason  I  took  it  out  of  your  hand,  lest,  not  observing 
her,  you  should  have  shut  it  suddenly  and  crushed  her.  It  was 
a  white  dog,  and  I  took  it  for  Flora.'  Search  was  immediately 
made  for  the  dog,  but  she  was  found  locked  up  in  the  stable 
and  had  not  been  out  of  it  the  whole  day.  It  is  certainly 
remarkable  —  even  supposing  Hahn  to  have  been  deceived  with 
respect  to  the  footsteps  —  that  Kern  should  have  seen  a  white 
dog  behind  him,  before  he  had  heard  a  word  on  the  subject 
from  his  friend,  especially  as  there  was  no  such  animal  in  the 
neighborhood  ;  besides,  it  was  not  yet  dark,  and  Kern  was  very 
sharp -sigh  ted. 

"  Hahn  remained  in  the  castle  for  half  a  year  after  this,  with- 
out experiencing  anything  extraordinary ;  and  even  persons 
who  had  possession  of  the  mysterious  chambers  were  not  sub- 
jected to  any  annoyance. 

"  The  riddle,  however,  in  spite  of  all  the  perquisitions  and 
investigations  that  were  set  on  foot  remained  unsolved  —  no 
explanation  of  these  strange  events  could  be  found ;  and  even 
supposing  any  motive  could  exist,  there  was  nobody  in  the 
neighborhood  clever  enough  to  have  carried  on  such  a  system 
of  persecution,  which  lasted  so  long,  that  the  inhabitants  of  the 
chamber  became  almost  indifferent  to  it. 

"  In  conclusion,  it  is  only  necessary  to  add  that  Councillor 
Hahn  wrote  down  this  account  for  his  own  satisfaction,  with  the 
strictest  regard  to  truth.    His  words  are  : — 

"  '  I  have  described  these  events  exactly  as  I  heard  and  saw 
them  :  from  beginning  to  end  I  observed  them  with  the  most 
entire  self-possession.  I  had  no  fear,  nor  the  slightest  tendency 
to  it ;  yet  the  whole  thing  remains  to  me  perfectly  inexplicable. 
Written  the  19th  of  November,  1808. 

"*  Augustus  Hahn,  Councillor.' 


THE  POLTERGEIST  OF  THE  GERMANS. 


399 


u  Doubtless  many  natural  explanations  of  these  phenomena 
will  be  suggested  by  those  who  consider  themselves  above  the 
weakness  of  crediting  stories  of  this  description.  Some  say 
that  Kern  was  a  dexterous  juggler)  who  contrived  to  throw 
dust  in  the  eyes  of  his  friend*  Hahn  ;  while  others  affirm  that 
both  Hahn  and  Kern  were  intoxicated  every  evening !  I  did 
not  fail  to  communicate  these  objections  to  Halm,  and  here 
insert  his  answer  : — 

"  '  After  the  events  alluded  to,  I  resided  with  Kern  for  a  quar- 
ter of  a  year  in  another  part  of  the  castle  of  Slawensick  (which 
has  since  been  struck  by  lightning,  and  burnt),  without  finding 
a  solution  of  the  mystery,  or  experiencing  a  repetition  of  the 
annoyance,  which  discontinued  from  the  moment  we  quitted 
those  particular  apartments.  Those  persons  must  suppose  me 
very  weak,  who  can  imagine  it  possible  that,  with  only  one 
companion,  I  could  have  been  the  subject  of  his  sport  for  two 
months  without  detecting  him.  As  for  Kern  himself,  he  was, 
from  the  first,  very  anxious  to  leave  the  rooms ;  but  as  I  was 
unwilling  to  resign  the  hope  of  discovering  some  natural  cause 
for  these  phenomena,  I  persisted  in  remaining;  and  the  thing 
that  at  last  induced  me  to  yield  to  his  wishes  was  the  vexation 
at  the  loss  of  his  china-pipe,  which  had  been  flung  against  the 
wall  and  broken.  Besides,  jugglery  requires  a  juggler,  and  I 
was  frequently  quite  alone  when  these  events  occurred.  It  is 
equally  absurd  to  accuse  us  of  intoxication.  The  wine  there 
was  too  dear  for  us  to  drink  at  all,  and  we  confined  ourselves 
wholly  to  weak  beer.  All  the  circumstances  that  happened  are 
not  set  down  in  the  narration  ;  but  my  recollection  of  the  whole 
is  as  vivid  as-  if  it  had  occurred  yesterday.  We  had  also  many 
witnesses,  some  of  whom  have  been  mentioned.  Councillor 
Klenk  also  visited  me  at  a  later  period,  with  every  desire  to 
investigate  the  mystery  ;  and  when,  one  morning,  he  had 
mounted  on  a  table,  for  the  purpose  of  doing  so,  and  was 
knocking  at  the  ceiling  with  a  stick,  a  powder-horn  fell  upon 
him,  which  he  had  just  before  left  on  the  table  in  another  room. 
At  that  time  Kern  had  been  for  some  time  absent.  I  neglected 
no  possible  means  that  could  have  led  to  a  discovery  of  tho 


400 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


secret ;  and  at  least  as  many  people  have  blamed  me  for  my 
unwillingness  to  believe  in  a  supernatural  cause  as  the  reverse. 
Fear  is  not  my  failing,  as  all  who  are  acquainted  with  me 
know ;  and,  to  avoid  the  possibility  of  error,  I  frequently  asked 
others  what  they  saw  when  I  was  myself  present ;  and  their 
answers  always  coincided  with  what  I  saw  myself.  From  1809 
to  1811  I  lived  in  Jacobswald,  very  near  the  castle  where  the 
prince  himself  was  residing.  I  am  aware  that  some  singular 
circumstances  occurred  while  he  was  there  ;  but  as  I  did  not 
witness  them  myself,  I  can  not  speak  of  them  more  particularly. 

"  1 1  am  still  as  unable  as  ever  to  account  for  those  events, 
and  I  am  content  to  submit  to  the  hasty  remarks  of  the  world, 
knowing  that  I  have  only  related  the  truth,  and  what  many  per- 
sons now  alive  witnessed  as  well  as  myself. 

" 4  Councillor  Hahn. 

"  <  Ixgklfinger,  August  24,  1828.'  "  * 

The  only  key  to  this  mystery  ever  discovered  was,  that  after 
the  destruction  of  the  castle  by  lightning,  when  the  ruins  were 
removed,  there  was  found  the  skeleton  of  a  man  without  a 
coffin.  His  skull  had  been  split,  and  a  sword  lay  by  his 
side  ! 

Now,  I  am  very  well  aware  how  absurd  and  impossible  these 
events  will  appear  to  many  people,  and  that  they  will  have  re- 
course to  any  explanation  rather  lhan  admit  them  for  facts. 
Yet,  so  late  as  the  year  1835,  a  suit  was  brought  before  the 
sheriff  of  Edinburgh,  in  which  Captain  Molesworth  was  defend- 
ant, and  the  landlord  of  the  house  he  inhabited  (which  was  at 
Trinity,  about  a  couple  of  miles  from  Edinburgh)  was  plaintiff, 
founded  upon  circumstances  not  so  yaried,  certainly,  but  quite 
as  inexplicable.    The  suit  lasted  two  years,  and  I  have  been 

favored  with  the  particulars  of  the  case  by  Mr.  M          L  , 

the  advocate  employed  by  the  plaintiff,  who  spent  many  hours 
in  examining  the  numerous  witnesses,  several  of  whom  were 
officers  of  the  army,  and  gentlemen  of  undoubted  honor  and 
capacity  for  observation. 

Captain  Molesworth  took  the  house  of  a  Mr.  Webster,  who 
*  Translated  from  the  original  German. —  C.  C. 


THE  POLTERGEIST  OF  THE  GERMANS. 


401 


resided  in  the  adjoining  one,  in  May  or  June,  1835  ;  nnd  when 
he  had  been  in  it  about  two  months,  he  began  to  complain  of 
sundry  extraordinary  noises,  which,  finding  it  impossible  to 
account  for,  he  took  it  into  his  head  (strangely  enough)  were 
made  by  Mr.  Webster.  The  latter  naturally  represented  that 
it  was  not  probable  he  should  desire  to  damage  the  reputation 
of  his  own  house,  and  drive  his  tenant  out  of  it,  and  retorted 
the  accusation.  Still,  as  these  noises  and  knockings  continued, 
Captain  Moles  worth  not  only  lifted  the  boards  in  the  room  most 
infected,  but  actually  made  holes  in  the  wall  which  divided  his 
residence  from  Mr.  Webster's,  for  the  purpose  of  detecting  the 
delinquent  —  of  course  without  success.  Do  what  they  would, 
the  thing  went  on  just  the  same :  footsteps  of  invisible  feet, 
knockings,  and  scratchings,  and  rustlings,  first  on  one  side,  and 
then  on  the  other,  were  heard  daily  and  nightly.  Sometimes 
this  unseen  agent  seemed  to  be  knocking  to  a  certain  tune,  and 
if  a  question  were  addressed  to  it  which  could  be  answered 
numerically  —  as,  "  How  many  people  are  there  in  this  room  V* 
for  example  —  it  would  answer  by  so  many  knocks.  The  beds, 
too,  were  occasionally  heaved  up,  as  if  somebody  were  under- 
neath, and  where  the  knockings  were,  the  wall  trembled  visi- 
bly, but,  search  as  they  would,  no  one  could  be  found. 

Captain  Molesworth  had  had  two  daughters,  one  of  whom, 
named  Matilda,  had  lately  died  ;  the  other,  a  girl  between  twelve 
and  thirteen,  called  Jane,  was  sickly,  and  generally  kept  her 
bed ;  and,  as  it  was  observed  that,  wherever  she  was,  these 
noises  most  frequently  prevailed,  Mr.  Webster,  who  did  not 
like  the  mala  Jama  that  was  attaching  itself  to  his  house,  de- 
clared that  she  made  them,  while  the  people  in  the  neighbor- 
hood believed  that  it  was  the  ghost  of  Matilda,  warning  her 
sister  that  she  was  soon  to  follow. 

Sheriff's  officers,  masons,  justices  of  peace,  and  the  officers 
of  the  regiment  quartered  at  Leith,  who  were  friends  of  Cap- 
tain Molesworth,  all  came  to  his  aid,  in  hopes  of  detecting  or 
frightening  away  his  tormentor,  but  in  vain.  Sometimes  it  was 
said  to  be  a  trick  of  somebody  outside  the  house,  and  then  they 
formed  a  cordon  round  it ;  and  next,  as  the  poor  sick  girl  was 


402 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


suspected,  they  tied  her  up  in  a  bag  —  but  it  was  all  to  no 
purpose. 

At  length,  ill  and  wearied  out  by  the  annoyances  and  the 
anxieties  attending  the  affair,  Captain  Molesworth  quitted  the 
house,  and  Mr.  Webster  brought  an  action  against  him  for  the 
damages  committed  by  lifting  the  boards,  breaking  the  walls, 
and  firing  at  the  wainscoat,  as  well  as  for  the  injury  done  to  his 
house  by  saying  it  was  haunted,  which  prevented  other  tenants 
taking  it. 

The  poor  young  lady  died,  hastened  out  of  the  world,  it  is 
said,  by  the  severe  measures  used  while  she  was  under  suspi- 
cion ;  and  the  persons  that  have  since  inhabited  the  house  have 
experienced  no  repetition  of  the  annoyance. 

The  manner  in  which  these  strange  persecutions  attach  them- 
selves to  certain  persons  and  places,  seems  somewhat  analogous 
to  another  class  of  cases,  which  bear  a  great  similarity  to  what 
was  formerly  called  possession  :  and  I  must  here  observe  that 
many  German  physicians  maintain  that,  to  this  day,  instances 
of  genuine  possession  occur,  and  there  are  several  works  pub- 
lished in  their  language  on  the  subject ;  and  for  this  malady 
they  consider  magnetism  the  only  remedy,  all  others  being 
worse  than  useless.  Indeed,  they  look  upon  possession  itself  as 
a  demono-magnetic  state,  in  which  the  patient  is  in  rapport  with 
mischievous  or  evil  spirits  ;  as,  in  the  agatho  (or  good)  magnetic 
state,  which  is  the  opposite  pole,  he  is  in  rapport  with  good 
ones :  and  they  particularly  warn  their  readers  against  con- 
founding this  infliction  with  cases  of  epilepsy  or  mania.  They 
assert  that,  although  instances  are  comparatively  rare,  both 
sexes  and  all  ages  are  equally  subject  to  this  misfortune ;  and 
that  it  is  quite  an  error  to  suppose,  either,  that  it  has  ceased 
since  the  resurrection  of  Christ,  or  that  the  expression  used  in 
the  Scriptures,  "possessed  by  a  devil,"  n  eant  merely  insanity 
or  convulsions. 

This  disease,  which  is  not  contagious,  was  well  known  to  tha 
Greeks  ;  and  in  later  times  Hoffmann  has  recorded  several  well- 
established  instances.  Among  the  distinguishing  symptoms, 
they  reckon  the  patient's  speaking  in  a  voice  that  is  not  his 


THE  POLTERGEIST  OF  THE  GERMANS. 


403 


own  ;  frightful  convulsions  and  motions  of  the  body,  which  arise 
suddenly,  without  any  previous  indisposition  ;  blasphemous  and 
obscene  talk  ;  a  knowledge  of  what  is  secret,  and  of  the  future  ; 
a  vomiting  of  extraordinary  things,  such  as  hair,  stones,  pins, 
needles,  &c,  &c.  I  need  scarcely  observe  that  this  opinion  is 
not  universal  in  Germany  ;  still,  it  obtains  among  many  who 
have  had  considerable  opportunities  for  observation. 

Dr.  Bardili  had  a  case  in  the  year  1830,  which  he  considered 
decidedly  to  be  one  of  possession.  The  patient  was  a  peasant 
woman,  aged  thirty-four,  who  never  had  any  sickness  whatever, 
and  the  whole  of  whose  bodily  functions  continued  perfectly 
regular  while  she  exhibited  the  following  strange  phenomena : 
I  must  observe  that  she  was  happily  married,  and  had  three 
children  —  was  not  a  fanatic,  and  bore  an  excellent  character 
for  7-egularity  and  industry  —  when,  without  any  warning  or 
perceptible  cause,  she  was  seized,  with  the  most  extraordinary 
convulsions,  while  a  strange  voice  proceeded  from  her,  which 
assumed  to  be  that  of  an  unblessed  spirit,  who  had  formerly 
inhabited  a  human  form.  While  these  fits  were  on  her,  she 
entirely  lost  her  own  individuality,  and  became  this  person  :  on 
returning  to  herself,  her  understanding  and  character  were  as 
entire  as  before.  The  blasphemy  and  cursing,  and  barking  and 
screeching,  were  dreadful.  She  was  wounded  and  injured 
severely  by  the  violent  falls  and  blows  she  gave  herself ;  and 
when  she  had  an  intermission,  she  could  do  nothing  but  weep 
over  what  they  told  her  had  passed,  and  the  state  in  which  she 
saw  herself.  She  was,  moreover,  reduced  to  a  skeleton  ;  for 
when  she  wanted  to  eat,  the  spoon  was  turned  round  in  her 
hand,  and  she  often  fasted  for  days  together. 

This  affliction  lasted  for  three  years  ;  all  remedies  failed,  and 
the  only  alleviation  she  obtained  was  by  the  continued  and  ear- 
nest prayers  of  those  about  her,  and  her  own  :  for  although  this 
demon  did  not  like  prayers,  and  violently  opposed  her  kneeling 
down,  even  forcing  her  to  outrageous  fits  of  laughter,  still  they 
had  a  power  over  him.  It  is  remarkable  that  pregnancy,  con- 
finement, and  the  nursing  her  child,  made  not  the  least  differ- 
ence in  this  woman's  condition  :  all  went  on  regularly,  but  the 


404 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


demon  kept  his  post.  At  length,  being  magnetized,  the  patient 
fell  into  a  partially  somnambulic  state,  in  which  another  voice 
was  heard  to  proceed  from  her,  being  that  of  her  protecting 
spirit,  which  encouraged  her  to  patience  and  hope,  and  prom- 
ised that  the  evil  guest  would  be  obliged  to  vacate  his  quarters. 
She  often  now  fell  into  a  magnetic  state  without  the  aid  of  a 
magnetizer.  At  the  end  of  three  years  she  was  entirely  relieved 
and  as  well  as  ever. 

In  the  case  of  Rosina  Wildin,  aged  ten  years,  which  occurred 
at  Pleidelsheim,  in  1834,  the  demon  used  to  announce  himself 
by  crying  out,  "  Here  I  am  again !"  Whereupon  the  weak, 
exhausted  child,  who  had  been  lying  like  one  dead,  would  rage 
and  storm  in  a  voice  like  a  man's,  perform  the  most  extraordi- 
nary movements  and  feats  of  violence  and  strength,  till  he  would 
cry  out,  "Now  I  must  be  off  again  !"  This  spirit  spoke  gener- 
ally in  the  plural  number,  for  he  said  she  had  another  besides 
himself,  a  dumb  devil,  who  plagued  her  most.  "  He  it  is  that 
twirls  her  round  and  round,  distorts  her  features,  turns  her 
eyes,  locks  her  teeth,  &c.  What  he  bids  me,  I  must  do  V* 
This  child  was  at  length  cured  by  magnetism. 

Barbara  Rieger,  of  Steinbach,  aged  ten,  in  1834,  was  pos- 
sessed by  two  spirits,  who  spoke  in  two  distinctly  different  male 
voices  and  dialects ;  one  said  he  had  formerly  been  a  mason, 
the  other  gave  himself  out  for  a  deceased  provisor ;  the  latter 
of  whom  was  much  the  worst  of  the  two.  When  they  spoke, 
the  child  closed  her  eyes,  and  when  she  opened  them  again,  she 
knew  nothing  of  what  they  had  said.  The  mason  confessed  to 
have  been  a  great  sinner,  but  the  provisor  was  proud  and  hard- 
ened, and  would  confess  nothing.  They  often  commanded 
food,  and  made  her  eat  it,  which,  when  she  recovered  her  indi- 
viduality, she  felt  nothing  of,  but  was  very  hungry.  The  ma- 
son was  very  fond  of  brandy  and  drank  a  great  deal ;  and  if 
not  brought  when  he  ordered  it,  his  raging  and  storming  was 
dreadful.  In  her  own  individuality  the  child  had  the  greatest 
aversion  to  this  liquor.  They  treated  her  for  worms,  and  other 
disorders,  without  the  least  effect ;  till  at  length,  by  magnetism, 
the  mason  was  cast  out.    The  provisor  was  more  tenacious, 


THE  POLTERGEIST  OF  THE  GERMANS. 


405 


but  finally  they  got  rid  of  him  too,  and  the  girl  remained  quite 
well. 

In  1835,  a  respectable  citizen,  whose  full  name  is  not  given, 
was  brought  to  Dr.  Kerner.  He  was  aged  thirty-seven,  and 
till  the  last  seven  years  had  been  unexceptionable  in  conduct 
and  character.  An  unaccountable  change  had,  however,  come 
over  him  in  his  thirtieth  year,  which  made  his  family  very  un- 
happy ;  and  at  length,  one  day,  a  strange  voice  suddenly  spoke 

out  of  him,  saying  that  he  was  the  late  magistrate  S  ,  and 

that  he  had  been  in  him  six  years.  When  this  spirit  was  driven 
out,  by  magnetism,  the  man  fell  to  the  earth,  and  was  almost 
torn  to  pieces  by  the  violence  of  the  struggle ;  he  then  lay  for 
a  space  as  if  dead,  and  arose  quite  well  and  free. 

In  another  case,  a  young  woman  at  Gruppenbach,  was  quite 
in  her  senses,  and  heard  the  voice  of  her  demon  (who  was  also 
a  deceased  person)  speak  out  of  her,  without  having  any  power 
to  suppress  it. 

In  short,  instances  of  this  description  seem  by  no  means  rare  ; 
and  if  such  a  phenomenon  as  possession  ever  did  exist,  I  do 
not  see  what  right  we  have  to  assert  that  it  exists  no  longer, 
since,  in  fact,  we  know  nothing  about  it ;  only,  that  being  deter- 
mined to  admit  nothing  so  contrary  to  the  ideas  of  the  present 
day,  we  set  out  by  deciding  that  the  thing  is  impossible 

Since  these  cases  occur  in  other  countries,  no  doubt  they 
must  do  so  in  this ;  and,  indeed,  I  have  met  with  one  instance 
much  more  remarkable  in  its  details  than  any  of  those  abovemen- 
tioned,  which  occurred  at  Bishopwearmouth,  near  Sunderland, 
in  the  year  1840  ;  and  as  the  particulars  of  this  case  have  been 
published  and  attested  by  two  physicians  and  two  surgeons,  not 
to  mention  the  evidence  of  numerous  other  persons,  I  think  we 
are  bound  to  accept  the  facts,  whatever  interpretation  we  may 
choose  to  put  upon  them. 

The  patient,  named  Mary  Jobson,  was  between  twelve  and 
thirteen  years  of  age ;  her  parents,  respectable  people  in 
humble  life,  and  herself  an  attendant  on  a  Sunday-school.  She 
became  ill  in  November,  1839,  and  was  soon  afterward  seized 
with  terrific  fits,  which  continued,  at  intervals,  for  eleven  weeks. 


406 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


It  was  during  this  period  that  the  family  first  observed  a  strange 
knocking,  which  they  could  not  account  for.  It  was  sometimes 
in  one  place,  and  sometimes  in  another ;  and  even  about  the 
bed,  when  the  girl  lay  in  a  quiet  sleep,  with  her  hands  folded 
outside  the  clothes.  They  next  heard  a  strange  voice,  which 
told  them  circumstances  they  did  not  know,  but  which  they 
afterward  found  to  be  correct.  Then  there  was  a  noise  like  the 
clashing  of  arms,  and  such  a  rumbling  that  the  tenant  below 
thought  the  house  was  coming  down  ;  footsteps  where  nobody 
was  to  be  seen,  water  falling  on  the  floor,  no  one  knew  whence, 
locked  doors  opened,  and  above  all,  sounds  of  ineffably  sweet 
music.  The  doctors  and  the  father  were  suspicious,  and  every 
precaution  was  taken,  but  no  solution  of  the  mystery  could  be 
found.  This  spirit,  however,  was  a  good  one,  and  it  preached 
to  them,  and  gave  them  a  great  deal  of  good  advice.  Many 
persons  went  to  witness  this  strange  phenomenon,  and  some 
were  desired  to  go  by  the  voice,  when  in  their  own  homes. 
Thus  Elizabeth  Gauntlett,  while  attending  to  some  domestic 
affairs  at  home,  was  startled  by  hearing  a  voice  sa^,  "  Be  thou 
faithful,  and  thou  shalt  see  the  works  of  thy  God,  and  shalt  hear 
with  thine  ears  !"  She  cried  out,  "  My  God  !  what  can  this  be!" 
and  presently  she  saw  a  large  white  cloud  near  her.  On  the 
same  evening  the  voice  said  to  her,  "  Mary  Jobson,  one  of  your 
scholars  is  sick ;  go  and  see  her,  and  it  will  be  good  for  you." 
This  person  did  not  know  where  the  child  lived,  but  having  in- 
quired the  address,  she  went :  and  at  the  door  she  heard  the 
same  voice  bid  her  go  up.  On  entering  the  room  she  heard 
another  voice,  soft  and  beautiful,  which  bade  her  be  faithful, 
and  said,  "I  am  the  Virgin  Mary."  This  voice  piomised  her 
a  sign  at  home ;  and  accordingly,  that  night,  while  reading  the 
Bible,  she  heard  it  say,  u  Jemima,  be  not  afraid  ;  it  is  I :  if  you 
keep  my  commandments  it  shall  be  well  with  you."  When  she 
repeated  her  visit  the  same  things  occurred,  and  she  heard  the 
most  exquisite  music. 

The  same  sort  of  phenomena  were  witnessed  by  everybody 
who  went  —  the  immoral  were  rebuked,  the  good  encouraged. 
Some  were  bidden  instantly  to  depart,  and  were  forced  to  go 


THE  POLTERGEIST  OF  THE  GERMANS. 


407 


The  voices  of  several  deceased  persons  of  the  family  were  also 
heard,  and  made  revelations. 

Once  the  voice  said,  "  Look  up,  and  you  shall  see  the  sun 
and  moon  on  the  ceiling!"  and  immediately  there  appeared  a 
beautiful  representation  of  these  planets  in  lively  colors,  viz., 
green,  yellow,  and  orange.  Moreover,  these  figures  were  per- 
manent ;  but  the  father,  who  was  a  long  time  skeptical,  insisted 
on  whitewashing  them  over ;  however,  they  still  remained 
visible. 

Among  other  things,  the  voice  said,  that  though  the  child  ap- 
peared to  suffer,  she  did  not ;  that  she  did  not  know  where  her 
body  was ;  and  that  her  own  spirit  had  left  it,  and  another  had 
entered  ;  and  that  her  body  was  rrlade  a  speaking  trumpet.  The 
voice  told  the  family  and  visiters  many  things  of  their  distant 
friends,  which  proved  true. 

The  girl  twice  saw  a  divine  form  standing  by  her  bedside 
who  spoke  to  her,  and  Joseph  Ragg,  one  of  the  persons  who 
had  been  invited  by  the  voice  to  go,  saw  a  beautiful  and  heav- 
enly figure  come  to  his  bedside  about  eleven  o'clock  at  night, 
on  the  17th  of  January.  It  was  in  male  attire,  surrounded  by 
a  radiance ;  it  came  a  second  time  on  the  same  night.  On  each 
occasion  it  opened  his  curtains  and  looked  at  him  benignantly, 
remaining  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour.  When  it  went  away, 
the  curtains  fell  back  into  their  former  position.  One  day, 
while  in  the  sick  child's  room,  Margaret  Watson  saw  a  lamb, 
which  passed  through  the  door  and  entered  a  place  where  the 
father,  John  Jobson,  was ;  but  he  did  not  see  it. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  features  in  this  case  is  the  beau- 
tiful music  which  was  heard  by  all  parties,  as  well  as  the  fam- 
ily, including  the  unbelieving  father ;  and  indeed  it  seems  to 
have  been,  in  a  great  degree,  this  that  converted  him  at  last. 
This  music  was  heard  repeatedly  during  a  space  of  sixteen 
weeks  :  sometimes  it  was  like  an  organ,  but  more  beautiful ;  at 
others  there  was  singing  of  holy  songs,  in  parts,  and  the  words 
distinctly  heard.  The  sudden  appearance  of  water  in  the  room 
too  was  most  unaccountable ;  for  they  felt  it,  and  it  was  really 
water.    When  the  voice  desired  that  water  should  be  sprinkled, 


408 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


it  immediately  appeared  as  if  sprinkled.  At  another  time,  a 
sign  being  promised  to  the  skeptical  father,  water  would  sud- 
denly appear  on  the  floor ;  this  happened  "  not  once,  but 
twenty  times." 

During  the  whole  course  of  this  affair,  the  voices  told  them 
that  there  was  a  miracle  to  be  wrought  on  this  child ;  and  ac- 
cordingly on  the  22d  of  June,  when  she  was  as  ill  as  ever  and 
they  were  only  praying  for  her  death,  at  five  o'clock  the  voice 
ordered  that  her  clothes  should  be  laid  out,  and  that  every- 
body should  leave  the  room  except  the  infant,  which  was  two 
years  and  a  half  old.  They  obeyed ;  and  having  been  outside 
the  door  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  the  voice  cried,  "  Come  in  !" 
and  when  they  entered,  they  saw  the  girl  completely  dressed 
and  quite  well,  sitting  in  a  chair  with  the  infant  on  her  knee, 
and  she  had  not  had  an  hour's  illness  from  that  time  till  the 
report  was  published,  which  was  on  the  30th  of  January,  1841. 

Now,  it  is  very  easy  to  laugh  at  all  this,  and  assert  that  these 
things  never  happened,  because  they  are  absurd  and  impossi- 
ble ;  but  while  honest,  well-meaning,  and  intelligent  people, 
who  were  on  the  spot,  assert  that  they  did,  I  confess  I  find  my- 
self constrained  to  believe  them,  however  much  I  find  in  the 
case  which  is  discrepant  with  my  notions.  It  was  not  an  affair 
of  a  day  or  an  hour — there  was  ample  time  for  observation — for 
the  phenomena  continued  from  the  9th  of  February  to  the  22d 
of  June  ;  and  the  determined  unbelief  of  the  father  regarding 
the  possibility  of  spiritual  appearances,  insomuch  that  he  ulti- 
mately expressed  great  regret  for  the  harshness  he  had  used, 
is  a  tolerable  security  against  imposition.  Moreover,  they  per- 
tinaciously refused  to  receive  any  money  or  assistance  what- 
ever, and  were  more  likely  to  suffer  in  public  opinion  than 
otherwise  by  the  avowal  of  these  circumstances. 

Dr.  Clanny,  who  publishes  the  report  with  the  attestations 
of  the  witnesses,  is  a  physician  of  many  years'  experience,  and 
is  also,  I  believe,  the  inventor  of  the  improved  Davy  lamp ; 
and  he  declares  his  entire  conviction  of  the  facts,  assuring  his 
readers  that  "  many  persons  holding  high  rank  in  the  estab- 
lished church,  ministers  of  other  denominations,  as  well  as  many 


THE  POLTERGEIST  OF  THE  GERMANS. 


409 


lay-members  of  society,  highly  respected  for  learning  and  piety, 
are  equally  satisfied."  When  he  first  saw  the  child  lying  on 
her  back,  apparently  insensible,  her  eyes  suffused  with  florid 
blood,  he  felt  assured  that  she  had  a  disease  of  the  brain  ;  and 
he  was  not  in  the  least  disposed  to  believe  in  the  mysterious 
part  of  the  affair,  till  subsequent  investigation  compelled  him  to 
do  so  :  and  that  his  belief  is  of  a  very  decided  character  we  may 
feel  assured,  when  he  is  content  to  submit  to  all  the  obloquy  he 
must  incur  by  avowing  it. 

He  adds  that,  since  the  girl  has  been  quite  well,  both  her 
family  and  that  of  Joseph  Ragg  have  frequently  heard  the  same 
heavenly  music  as  they  did  during  her  illness :  and  Mr.  Tor- 
bock,  a  surgeon,  who  expresses  himself  satisfied  of  the  truth  of 
the  above  particulars,  also  mentions  another  case,  in  which  he, 
as  well  as  a  dying  person  he  was  attending,  heard  divine  music 
just  before  the' dissolution. 

Of  this  last  phenomenon — namely,  sounds  as  of  heavenly 
music  being  heard  when  a  death  was  occurring — I  have  met 
with  numerous  instances. 

From  the  investigation  of  the  above  case,  Dr.  Clanny  has 
arrived  at  the  conviction  that  the  spiritual  world  do  occasion- 
ally identify  themselves  with  our  affairs ;  and  Dr.  Drury  asserts 
that,  besides  this  instance,  he  has  met  with  another  circumstance 
which  has  left  him  firmly  convinced  that  we  live  in  a  world  of 
spirits,  and  that  he  has  been  in  the  presence  of  an  unearthly 
oeing,  who  had  "  passed  that  bourne  from  which/'  it  is  said, 
f*  no  traveller  returns."* 

But  the  most  extraordinary  case  I  have  yet  met  with  is  the 
following ;  because  it  is  'one  which  can  not,  by  any  possibility, 
be  attributed  to  disease  or  illusion.  It  is  furnished  to  me  from 
the  most  undoubted  authority,  and  I  give  it  as  I  received  it, 
with  the  omission  of  the  names.  I  have  indeed,  in  this  instance, 
thought  it  right  to  change  the  initial,  and  substitute  G.  for  the 
right  one — the  particulars  being  of  a  nature  which  demand  the 
greatest  delicacy,  as  regards  the  parties  concerned:  — 


*  Alluding,  I  conclude,  to  the  affair  at  Willbgton. 
18 


410 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


"  Mrs.  S.  C.  Hall,  in  early  life,  was  intimately  acquainted 

with  a  family,  one  of  whom,  Richard  G  ,  a  young  officer  in 

the  army,  was  subject  to  a  harassing  visitation  of  a  kind  that  is 
usually  regarded  as  supernatural.    Mrs.  H.  once  proposed  to 

pay  a  visit  to  her  particular  friend,  Catherine  G  ,  but  was 

told  that  it  would  not  be  convenient  exactly  at  that  time,  as 
Richard  was  on  the  point  of  coming  home.  She  thought  the 
inconvenience  consisted  in  the  want  of  a  bed-room,  and  spoke 

of  sleeping  with  Miss  G  ,  but  found  that  the  objection 

really  lay  in  the  fact  of  Richard  being  '  haunted,'  which  ren- 
dered it  impossible  for  anybody  else  to  be  comfortable  in  the 
same  house  with  him.    A  few  weeks  after  Richard's  return, 

Mrs.  Hall  heard  of  Mrs.  G  's  being  extremely  ill ;  and 

found,  on  going  to  call,  that  it  was  owing  to  nothing  but  the  dis- 
tress the  old  lady  suffered  in  consequence  of  the  strange  cir- 
cumstance connected  with  her  son.  It  appeared  that  Richard, 
wherever  he  was  —  at  home,  in  camp,  in  lodgings,  abroad,  or 
in  his  own  country  —  was  liable  to  be  visited  in  his  bed-room 
at  night  by  certain  extraordinary  noises.  Any  light  he  kept  in 
the  room  was  sure  to  be  put  out.  Something  went  beating 
about  the  walls  and  his  bed,  making  a  great  noise,  and  often 
shifting  close  to  his  face,  but  never  becoming  visible.  If  a 
cage-bird  was  in  his  room,  it  was  certain  to  be  found  dead  in 
the  morning.  If  he  kept  a  dog  in  the  apartment,  it  would  make 
away  from  him  as  soon  as  released,  and  never  come  near  him 
again.  His  brother,  even  his  mother,  had  slept  in  the  room, 
but  the  visitation  took  place  as  usual.     According  to  Miss 

G  's  report,  she  and  other  members  of  the  family  would 

listen  at  the  bed-room  door,  after  Richard  had  gone  to  sleep, 
and  would  hear  the  noises  commence  ;  and  they  would  then 
hear  him  sit  up  and  express  his  vexation  by  a  few  military 
execrations.  The  young  man,  at  length,  was  obliged  by  this 
pest  to  quit  the  army  and  go  upon  half-pay.  Under  its  influ- 
ence he  became  a  sort  of  Cain  ;  for,  wherever  he  lived,  the 
annoyance  was  so  great  that  he  was  quickly  obliged  to  remove. 
Mrs.  Hall  heard  of  his  having  ultimately  gone  to  settle  in  Ire- 
land, where,  however,  according  to  a  brother  whom  she  met 


MISCELLANEOUS  PHENOMENA.  411 


about  four  years  ago,  the  visitation  which  afflicted  him  in  his 
early  years  was  in  no  degree  abated." 

This  can  not  be  called  a  case  of  possession,  but  seems  to  be 
one  of  a  rapport,  which  attaches  this  invisible  tormentor  to  his 
victim. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

MISCELLANEOUS  PHENOMENA. 

In  a  former  chapter,  I  alluded  to  the  forms  seen  floating  over 
graves,  by  Billing,  Pfeftel's  amanuensis.  By  some  persons,  this 
luminous  form  is  seen  only  as  a  light,  just  as  occurs  in  many  of 
the  apparition  cases  I  have  related.  How  far  Baron  Reichen- 
bach  is  correct  in  his  conclusion,  that  these  figures  are  merely 
the  result  of  the  chemical  process  going  on  below,  it  is  impos- 
sible for  any  one  at  present  to  say.  The  fact  that  these  lights 
do  not  always  hover  over  the  graves,  but  sometimes  move  from 
them,  militates  against  this  opinion,  as  I  have  before  observed ; 
and  the  insubstantial  nature  of  the  form  which  reconstructed 
itself  after  Pfeffel  had  passed  his  stick  through  it  proves  noth- 
ing, since  the  same  thing  is  asserted  of  all  apparitions  I  meet 
with,  let  them  be  seen  where  they  may,  except  in  such  very 
extraordinary  cases  as  that  of  the  Bride  of  Corinth,  supposing 
that  story  to  be  true. 

At  the  same  time,  although  these  cases  are  not  made  out  to 
be  chemical  phenomena,  neither  are  we  entitled  to  class  them 
under  the  head  of  what  is  commonly  understood  by  the  word 
ghost ;  whereby  we  comprehend  a  shadowy  shape,  informed  by 
an  intelligent  spirit.  But  there  are  some  cases,  a  few  of  which 
I  will  mention,  that  it  seems  extremely  difficult  to  include  under 
one  category  or  the  other. 

The  late  Lieutenant-General  Robertson,  of  Lawers,  who 
served  during  the  whole  of  the  American  war,  brought  home 


412 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


with  him,  at  its  termination,  a  negro,  who  went  by  the  name  of 
Black  Tom,  and  who  continued  in  his  service.  The  room  ap- 
propriated to  the  use  of  this  man,  in  the  general's  town  resi- 
dence (I  speak  of  Edinburgh),  was  on  the  ground  floor;  and  he 
was  heard  frequently  to  complain  that  he  could  not  rest  in  it, 
for  that  every  night  the  figure  of  a  headless  lady,  with  a  child 
in  her  arms,  rose  out  of  the  hearth  and  frightened  him  dread- 
fully. Of  course  nobody  believed  this  story,  and  it  was  sup- 
posed to  be  the  dream  of  intoxication,  as  Tom  was  not  remark- 
able for  sobriety ;  but,  strange  to  say,  when  the  old  mansion 
was  pulled  down  to  build  Gillespie's  hospital,  which  stands  on 
its  site,  there  was  found,  under  the  hearth-stone  in  that  apart- 
ment, a  box  containing  the  body  of  a  female,  from  which  the 
head  had  been  severed?  and  beside  her  lay  the  remains  of  an 
infant,  wrapped  in  a  pillow-case  trimmed  with  lace.  She  ap- 
peared, poor  lady,  to  have  been  cut  off  in  the  "  blossom  of  her 
sins;"  for  she  was  dressed,  and  her  scissors  were  yet  hanging 
by  a  riband  to  her  side,  and  her  thimble  was  also  in  the  box, 
having,  apparently,  fallen  from  the  shrivelled  finger. 

Now,  whether  we  are  to  consider  this  a  ghost,  or  a  phenom- 
enon of  the  same  nature  as  that  seen  by  Billing,  it  is  difficult  to 
decide.  Somewhat  similar  is  the  following  case,  which  I  have 
borrowed  from  a  little  work  entitled  "  Supernaturalism  in  New 
England."  Not  only  does  this  little  extract  prove  that  the  same 
phenomena,  be  they  interpreted  as  they  may,  exist  in  all  parts 
of  the  world,  but  I  think  it  will  be  granted  me  that,  although 
we  have  not  here  the  confirmation  that  time  furnished  in  the 
former  instance,  yet  it  is  difficult  to  suppose  that  this  unexcita- 
ble  person  should  have  been  the  subject  of  so  extraordinary  a 
spectral  illusion. 

"  Whoever  has  seen  Great  pond,  in  the  east  parish  of  Haver- 
hill, has  seen  one  of  the  very  loveliest  of  the  thousand  little 
lakes  or  ponds  of  New  England.  With  its  soft  slopes  of  green- 
est verdure —  its  white  and  sparkling  sand-rim  —  its  southern 
hem  of  pine  and  maple,  mirrored,  with  spray  and  leaf,  in  the 
glassy  water — its  graceful  hill-sentinels  round  about,  white  with 
the  orchard-bloom  of  spring,  or  tasselled  with  the  corn  of  au 


MISCELLANEOUS  PHENOMENA. 


413 


tumn — its  long  sweep  of  blue  waters,  broken  here  mid  there 
by  picturesque  headlands  —  it  would  seem  a  spot,  of  all  others, 
where  spirits  of  evil  must  shrink,  rebuked  and  abashed,  from 
the  presence  of  the  beautiful.  Yet  here,  too,  has  the  shadow 
of  the  supernatural  fallen.  A  lady  of  my  acquaintance,  a  staid, 
unimaginative  church-member,  states  that,  a  few  years  ago,  she 
was  standing  in  the  angle  formed  by  two  roads,  one  of  which 
traverses  the  pond-shore,  the  other  leading  over  the  hill  which 
rises  abruptly  from  the  water.  It  was  a  warm  summer  even- 
ing, just  at  sunset.  She  was  startled  by  the  appearance  of  a 
horse  and  cart,  of  the  kind  used  a  century  ago  in  New  England, 
driving  rapidly  down  the  steep  hill-side,  and  crossing  the  wall 
a  few  yards  before  her,  without  noise  or  displacing  of  a  stone. 
The  driver  sat  sternly  erect,  with  a  fierce  countenance,  grasp- 
ing the  reins  tightly,  and  looking  neither  to  the  right  nor  the 
left.  Behind  the  cart,  and  apparently  lashed  to  it,  was  a  woman 
of  gigantic  size,  her  countenance  convulsed  with  a  blended  ex- 
pression of  rage  and  agony,  writhing  and  struggling,  like  La- 
ocoon  in  the  folds  of  the  serpent.  Her  head,  neck,  feet,  and 
arms,  were  naked  ;  wild  locks  of  gray  hair  streamed  back  from 
temples  corrugated  and  darkened.  The  horrible  cavalcade 
swept  by  across  the  street,  and  disappeared  at  the  margin  of 
the  pond." 

Many  persons  will  have  heard  of  the  "  Wild  Troop  of  Ro- 
denstein,"  but  few  are  aware  of  the  curious  amount  of  evidence 
there  is  in  favor  of  the  strange  belief  which  prevails  among  the 
inhabitants  of  that  region.  The  story  goes,  that  the  former 
possessors  of  the  castles  of  Rodenstein  and  Schnellert  were  rob- 
bers and  pirates,  who  committed,  in  conjunction,  all  manner  of 
enormities ;  and  that,  to  this  day,  the  troop,  with  their  horses 
and  carriages,  and  dogs,  are  heard,  every  now  and  then,  wildly 
rushinor  along:  the  road  between  the  two  castles.  This  sounds 
like  a  fairy  tale ;  yet  so  much  was  it  believed,  that,  up  to  the 
middle  of  the  last  century,  regular  reports  were  made  to  the 
authorities  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  periods  when  the  troop 
had  passed.  Since  that,  the  landgericht,  or  court  leet,  has 
been  removed  to  Furth,  and  they  trouble  themselves  no  longer 


414 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


about  the  Rodenstein  troop  ;  but  a  traveller,  named  Wirth,  who 
a  few  years  ago  undertook  to  examine  into  the  affair,  declares 
the  people  assert  that  the  passage  of  the  visionary  cavalcade 
still  continues ;  and  they  assured  him  that  certain  houses,  that 
he  saw  lying  in  ruins,  were  in  that  state  because,  as  they  lay 
directly  in  the  way  of  the  troop,  they  were  uninhabitable. 
There  is  seldom  anything  seen  ;  but  the  noise  of  carriage- 
wheels,  horses'  feet,  smacking  of  whips,  blowing  of  horns,  and 
the  voice  of  these  fierce  hunters  of  men  urging  them  on,  are 
the  sounds  by  which  they  recognise  that  the  troop  is  passing 
from  one  castle  to  the  other ;  and  at  a  spot  which  was  formerly 
a  blacksmith's,  but  is  now  a  carpenter's,  the  invisible  lord  of 
Rodenstein  still  stops  to  have  his  horse  shod.  Mr.  Wirth  cop- 
ied several  of  the  depositions  out  of  the  court  records,  and  they 
are  brought  down  to  June,  1764.  This  is  certainly  a  strange 
story ;  but  it  is  not  much  more  so  than  that  of  the  black  man, 
which  I  know  to  be  true. 

During  the  seven  years'  war  in  Germany,  a  drover  lost  his 
life  in  a  drunken  squabble  on  the  high  road.  For  some  time 
there  was  a  sort  of  rude  tombstone,  with  a  cross  on  it,  to  mark 
the  spot  where  his  body  was  interred ;  but  this  has  long  fallen, 
and  a  milestone  now  fills  its  place.  Nevertheless,  it  continues 
commonly  asserted  by  the  country  people,  and  also  by  various 
travellers,  that  they  have  been  deluded  in  that  spot  by  seeing, 
as  they  imagine,  herds  of  beasts,  which,  on  investigation,  prove 
to  be  merely  visionary.  Of  course,  many  people  look  upon  this 
as  a  superstition ;  but  a  very  singular  confirmation  of  the  story 
occurred  in  the  year  1826,  when  two  gentlemen  and  two  ladies 
were  passing  the  spot  in  a  post-carriage.  One  of  these  was  a 
clergyman,  and  none  of  them  had  ever  heard  of  the  phenome- 
non said  to  be  attached  to  the  place.  They  had  been  discussing 
the  prospects  of  the  minister,  who  was  on  his  way  to  a  vicarage, 
to  which  he  had  just  been  appointed,  when  they  saw  a  large 
flock  of  sheep,  which  stretched  quite  across  the  road,  and  was 
accompanied  by  a  shepherd  and  a  long-haired  black  dog.  As 
to  meet  cattle  on  that  road  was  nothing  uncommon,  and  indeed 
they  had  met  several  droves  in  the  course  of  the  day,  no  remark 


MISCELLANEOUS  PHENOMENA. 


415 


was  made  at  the  moment,  till,  suddenly,  each  looked  at  the  other 
and  said,  "  What  is  become  of  the  sheep  ?"  Quite  perplexed 
at  their  sudden  disappearance,  they  called  to  the  postillion  to 
stop,  and  all  got  out  in  order  to  mount  a  little  elevation  and 
look  around ;  but  still  unable  to  discover  them,  they  now  be- 
thought themselves  of  asking  the  postillion  where  they  were, 
when,  to  their  infinite  surprise,  they  learned  that  he  had  not 
seen  them.  Upon  this,  they  bade  him  quicken  his  pace,  that 
they  might  overtake  a  carriage  that  had  passed  them  shortly 
before,  and  inquire  if  that  party  had  seen  the  sheep  ;  but  they 
had  not. 

Four  years  later,  a  postmaster,  named  J  ,  was  on  the 

same  road,  driving  a  carriage,  in  which  were  a  clergyman  and 
his  wife,  when  he  saw  a  large  flock  of  sheep  near  the  same 
spot.  Seeing  they  were  very  fine  wethers,  and  supposing  them 
to  have  been  bought  at  a  sheep-fair  that  was  then  taking  place 

a  few  miles  off,  J  drew  up  his  reins  and  stopped  his  horse* 

turning  at  the  same  time  to  the  clergyman  to  say,  that  he  wanted 
to  inquire  the  price  of  the  sheep,  as  he  intended  going  next  day 
to  the  fair  himself.    While  the  minister  was  asking  him  what 

sheep  he  meant,  J  got  down  and  found  himself  in  the  midst 

of  the  animals,  the  size  and  beauty  of  which  astonished  him. 
'  They  passed  him  at  an  unusual  rate,  while  he  made  his  way 
through  them  to  find  the  shepherd,  when,  on  getting  to  the  end 
of  the  flock,  they  suddenly  disappeared.  He  then  first  learned 
that  his  fellow-travellers  had  not  seen  them  at  all. 

Now,  if  such  cases  as  these  are  not  pure  illusions,  which  I 
confess  I  find  it  difficult  to  believe,  we  must  suppose  that  the 
animals  and  all  the  extraneous  circumstances  are  produced  by 
the  magical  will  of  the  spirit,  either  acting  on  the  constructive 
imagination  of  the  seers,  or  else  actually  constructing  the  ethe- 
real forms  out  of  the  elements  at  its  command,  just  as  we  have 
supposed  an  apparition  able  to  present  himself  with  whatever 
dress  or  appliances  he  conceives  ;  or  else  we  must  conclude 
these  forms  to  have  some  relation  to  the  mystery  called  pa- 
lixgnesia,  which  I  have  previously  alluded  to,  although  the 
motion  and  change  of  place  render  it  difficult  to  bring  them 


416 


THE  NIGH T-S IDE  OF  NATURE. 


under  this  category.  As  for  the  animals,  although  the  drover 
was  slain,  they  were  not ;  and  therefore,  even  granting  them  to 
have  souls,  we  can  not  look  upon  them  as  the  apparitions  of  the 
flock.  Neither  can  we  consider  the  numerous  instances  of 
armies  seen  in  the  air  to  be  apparitions  ;  and  yet  these  phenom- 
ena are  so  well  established  that  they  have  been  accounted  for 
by  supposing  them  to  be  atmospherical  reflections  of  armies 
elsewhere,  in  actual  motion.  But  how  are  we  to  account  for 
the  visionary  troops  which  are  not  seen  in  the  air,  but  on  the 
very  ground  on  which  the  seers  themselves  stand,  which  was 
the  case  especially  with  those  seen  in  Havarah  park,* near  Rip- 
ley, in  the  year  1812  ?  These  soldiers  wore  a  white  uniform, 
and  in  the  centre  was  a  personage  in  a  scarlet  one. 

After  performing  several  evolutions,  the  body  began  to  march 
in  perfect  order  to  the  summit  of  a  hill,  passing  the  spectators 
at  the  distance  of  about  one  hundred  yards.  They  amounted 
to  several  hundreds,  and  marched  in  a  column,  four  deep,  across 
about  thirty  acres ;  and  no  sooner  were  they  passed,  than  an- 
other body,  far  more  numerous,  but  dressed  in  dark  clothes, 
arose  and  marched  after  them,  without  any  apparent  hostility. 
Both  parties  having  reached  the  top  of  the  hill,  and  there  formed 
what  the  spectators  called  an  L,  they  disappeared  down  the 
other  side,  and  were  seen  no  more  ;  but  at  that  moment,  a  vol- 
ume of  smoke  arose  like  the  discharge  of  a  park  of  artillery, 
which  was  so  thick  that  the  men  could  not,  for  two  or  three 
minutes,  discover  their  own  cattle.  They  then  hurried  home 
to  relate  what  they  had  seen,  and  the  impression  made  on  them 
is  described  as  so  great,  that  they  could  never  allude  to  the 
subject  without  emotion. 

One  of  them  was  a  farmer  of  the  name  of  Jackson,  aged 
forty-five;  the  other  was  a  lad  of  fifteen,  called  Turner:  and 
they  were  at  the  time  herding  cattle  in  the  park.  The  scene 
seems  to  have  lasted  nearly  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  during  which 
time  they  were  quite  in  possession  of  themselves,  and  able  to 
make  remarks  to  each  other  on  what  they  saw.  They  were 
both  men  of  excellent  character  and  unimpeachable  veracity, 
insomuch  that  nobody  who  knew  them  doubted  that  they  actu- 


MISCELLANEOUS  PHENOMENA.  -* 


417 


ally  saw  what  they  described,  or,  at  all  events,  believed  that 
they  did.  It  is  to  be  observed,  also,  that  the  ground  is  not 
swampy,  nor  subject  to  any  exhalations. 

About  the  year  1750,  a  visionary  army  of  the  same  descrip- 
tion was  seen  in  the  neighborhood  of  Inverness,  by  a  respecta- 
ble farmer,  of  Glenary,  and  his  son.  The  number  of  troops 
was  very  great,  and  they  had  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  they 
were  otherwise  than  substantial  forms  of  flesh  and  blood.  They 
counted  at  least  sixteen  pairs  of  columns,  and  had  abundance 
of  time  to  observe  every  particular.  The  front  ranks  marched 
seven  abreast,  and  were  accompanied  by  a  good  many  women 
and  children,  who  were  carrying  tin  cans  and  other  implements 
of  cookery.  The  men  were  clothed  in  red,  and  their  arms 
shone  brightly  in  the  sun.  In  the  midst  of  them  was  an  animal 
—  a  deer  or  a  horse,  they  could  not  distinguish  which  —  that 
they  were  driving  furiously  forward  with  their  bayonets.  The 
younger  of  the  two  men  observed  to  the  other  that  every  now 
and  then  the  rear  ranks  were  obliged  to  run  to  overtake  the 
van ;  and  the  elder  one,  who  had  been  a  soldier,  remarked  that 
that  was  always  the  case,  and  recommended  him,  if  he  ever 
served,  to  try  and  march  in  the  front.  There  was  only  one 
mounted  officer  :  he  rode  a  gray  dragoon  horse,  and  wore  a 
gold-laced  hat  and  blue  hussar  cloak,  with  wide,  open  sleeves, 
lined  with  red.  The  two  spectators  observed  him  so  particu- 
larly, that  they  said  afterward  they  should  recognise  him  any- 
where. They  were,  however,  afraid  of  being  ill  treated,  or 
forced  to  go  along  with  the  troops,  whom  they  concluded  had 
come  from  Ireland,  and  landed  at  Kyntyre ;  and  while  they 
were  climbing  over  a  dike  to  get  out  of  their  way,  the  whole 
thing  vanished. 

Some  years  since,  a  phenomenon  of  the  same  sort  was  ob- 
served at  Paderborn,  in  Westphalia,  and  seen  by  at  least  thirty 
persons,  as  well  as  by  horses  and  dogs,  as  was  discovered  by 
the  demeanor  of  these  animals.  In  October,  1836,  on  the  very 
same  spot,  there  was  a  review  of  twenty  thousand  men ;  and 
the  people  then  concluded  that  the  former  vision  was  a  second- 
sight. 

18* 


418 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


A  similar  circumstance  occurred  in  Stockton  forest,  some 
years  ago  ;  and  there  are  many  recorded  elsewhere  —  one  espe- 
cially, in  the  year  1686,  near  Lanark,  where,  for  several  after- 
noons, in  the  months  of  June  and  July,  there  were  seen,  by 
numerous  spectators,  companies  of  men  in  arms,  marching  in 
order  by  the  banks  of  the  Clyde,  and  other  companies  meeting 
them,  &c,  &c. ;  added  to  which  there  were  showers  of  bonnets, 
hats,  guns,  swords,  &c,  which  the  seers  described  with  the 
greatest  exactness.  All  who  were  present  could  not  see  these 
things,  and  Walker  relates  that  one  gentleman,  particularly,  was 
turning  the  thing  into  ridicule,  calling  the  seers  "  damned  witches 
and  warlocks,  with  the  second-sight !" — boasting  that  "  the  devil 
a  thing  he  could  see  !"  —  when  he  suddenly  exclaimed,  with  fear 
and  trembling,  that  he  now  saw  it  all ;  and  entreated  those  who 
did  not  see,  to  say  nothing  —  a  change  that  may  be  easily  ac- 
counted for,  be  the  phenomenon  of  what  nature  it  may,  by  sup- 
posing him  to  have  touched  one  of  the  seers,  when  the  faculty 
would  be  communicated  like  a  shock  of  electricity. 

With  regard  to  the  palinganesia,  it  would  be  necessary  to 
establish  that  these  objects  had  previously  existed,  and  that,  as 
Oetinger  says,  the  earthly  husk  having  fallen  off,  "  the  volatile 
essence  had  ascended  perfect  in  form,  but  void  of  substance." 

The  notion  supported  by  Baron  Reichenbach,  that  the  lights 
seen  in  churchyards  and  over  graves  are  the  result  of  a  process 
going  on  below,  is  by  no  means  new,  for  Gaftarillus  suggested 
the  same  opinion  in  1650  ;  only  he  speaks  of  the  appearances 
over  graves  and  in  churchyards  as  shadows,  ombres,  as  they 
appeared  to  Billing ;  and  he  mentions,  casually,  as  a  thing  fre- 
quently observed,  that  the  same  visionary  forms  are  remarked 
on  ground  where  battles  have  been  fought,  which  he  thinks 
arise  out  of  a  process  between  the  earth  and  the  sun.  When 
a  limb  has  been  cut  off,  some  somnambules  still  discern  the 
form  of  the  member  as  if  actually  attached. 

But  this  magical  process  is  said  to  be  not  only  the  work  of 
the  elements,  but  also  possible  to  man  ;  and  that  as  the  forms 
of  plants  can  be  preserved  after  the  substance  is  destroyed,  so 
can  that  of  man  be  either  preserved  or  reproduced  from  the 


MISCELLANEOUS  PHENOMENA. 


413 


elements  of  his  body.  In  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV.,  three  alche- 
mists, having  distilled  some  earth  taken  from  the  cemetery  of 
the  Innocents,  in  Paris,  were  forced  to  desist,  by  seeing  the 
forms  of  men  appearing  in  their  vials,  instead  of  the  philosopher's 
stone,  which  they  were  seeking;  and  a  physician,  who,  after 
dissecting  a  body,  and  pulverizing  the  cranium  (which  was  thou 
an  article  admitted  into  the  materia  medica),  had  left  the  pow- 
der on  the  table  of  his  laboratory,  in  charge  of  his  assistant,  the 
latter,  who  slept  in  an  adjoining  room,  was  awakened  in  the 
night  by  hearing  a  noise,  which,  after  some  search,  he  ulti 
mately  traced  to  the  powder  —  in  the  midst  of  which  he  beheld, 
gradually  constructing  itself,  a  human  form  !  First  appeared 
the  head,  with  two  open  eyes,  then  the  arms  and  hands,  and,  by 
degrees,  the  rest  of  the  person,  which  subsequently  assumed 
the  clothes  it  had  worn  when  alive  !  The  man  was,  of  course, 
frightened  out  of  his  wits — the  rather,  as  the  apparition  planted 
itself  before  the  door,  and  would  not  let  him  go  away  till  it  had 
made  its  own  exit,  which  it  speedily  did.  Similar  results  have 
been  said  to  arise  from  experiments  performed  on  blood,  I 
confess  I  should  be  disposed  to  consider  these  apparitions,  if 
ever  they  appeared,  cases  of  genuine  ghosts,  brought  into  rap- 
port by  the  operation,  rather  than  forms  residing  in  the  bones 
or  blood.  At  all  events,  these  things  are  very  hard  to  believe ; 
but  seeing  we  were  not  there,  I  do  not  think  we  have  any  right 
to  say  they  did  not  happen  ;  or  at  least  that  some  phenomena 
did  not  occur,  that  were  open  to  this  interpretation. 

It  is  highly  probable  that  the  seeing  of  those  visionary  armies 
and  similar  prodigies  is  a  sort  of  second-sight;  but  having  ad- 
mitted this,  we  are  very  little  nearer  an  explanation.  Granting 
that,  as  in  the  above  experiments,  the  essence  of  things  may 
retain  the  forms  of  the  substance,  this  does  not  explain  the 
seeing  that  which  has  not  yet  taken  place,  or  which  is  taking 
place  at  so  great  a  distance,  that  neither  Oetinger's  essence  nor 
the  superficial  films  of  Lucretius  can  remove  the  difficulty. 

It  is  the  fashion  to  say  that  second-sight  was  a  mere  supersti- 
tion of  the  highlauders,  and  that  no  such  thing  is  ever  heard  of 
now ;  but  those  who  talk  in  this  way  know  very  little  of  the 


420 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


matter.  No  doubt,  if  they  set  out  to  look  for  seers,  they  may 
wot  find  them  ;  such  phenomena,  though  known  in  all  countries 
and  in  all  ages,  are  comjyaratively  rare,  as  well  as  uncertain  and 
capricious,  and  not  to  be  exercised  at  will :  but  I  know  of  too 
many  instances  of  the  existence  of  this  faculty  in  families,  as 
well  as  of  isolated  cases  occurring  to  individuals  above  all  sus- 
picion, to  entertain  the  smallest  doubt  of  its  reality.  But  the 
difficulty  of  furnishing  evidence  is  considerable  :  because,  when 
the  seers  are  of  the  humbler  classes,  they  are  called  impostors 
and  not  believed ;  and  when  they  are  of  the  higher,  they  do  not 
make  the  subject  a  matter  of  conversation,  nor  choose  to  expose 
themselves  to  the  ridicule  of  the  foolish  ;  and  consequently  the 
thing  is  not  known  beyond  their  own  immediate  friends.  When 
the  young  duke  of  Orleans  was  killed,  a  lady,  residing  here,  saw 
the  accident,  and  described  it  to  her  husband  at  the  time  it  was 
occurring  in  France.  She  had  frequently  seen  the  duke,  when 
on  the  continent. 

Captain  N  went  to  stay  two  days  at  the  house  of  Lady 

T  .  After  dinner,  however,  he  announced  that  he  was  un- 
der the  necessity  of  going  *away  that  night,  nor  could  he  be 
induced  to  remain.  On  being  much  pressed  for  an  explana- 
tion, he  confided  to  some  of  the  party  that,  during  the  dinner, 
he  had  seen  a  female  figure  with  her  throat  cut,  standing  behind 

Lady  T  's  chair.    Of  course,  it  was  thought  an  illusion,  but 

Lady  T  was  not  told  of  it,  lest  she  should  be  alarmed. 

That  night  the  household  was  called  up  for  the  purpose  of  sum- 
moning a  surgeon  —  Lady  T  had  cut  her  own  throat ! 

Mr.  C  ,  who,  though  a  Scotchman,  was  an  entire  skeptic 

with  regard  to  the  second-sight,  was  told  by  a  seer  whom  he 
had  been  jeering  on- the  Bubject,  that,  within  a  month,  he  (Mr. 

C  )  would  be  a  pall-bearer  at  a  funeral ;  that  he  would  go 

by  a  certain  road,  but  that,  before  they  had  crossed  the  brook, 
a  man  in  a  drab  coat  would  come  down  the  hill  and  take  the 

pall  from  him.    The  funeral  occurred,  Mr.  C  was  a  bearer, 

and  they  went  by  the  road  described  ;  but  he  firmly  resolved 
that  he  would  disappoint  the  seer  by  keeping  the  pall  while  they 
crossed  the  brook ;  but  shortly  before  they  reached  it,  the  post- 


MISCELLANEOUS  PHENOMENA. 


421 


man  overtook  them,  with  letters,  which  in  that  part  of  the  conn- 
try  arrived  but  twice  a  week,  and  Mr.  C  ,  who  was  engaged 

in  some  speculations  of  importance,  turned  to  received  them  — 
at  which  moment  the  pall  was  taken  from  him,  and  on  looking 
round,  he  saw  it  was  by  a  man  in  a  drab  coat ! 

A  medical  friend  of  mine,  who  practised  some  time  at  Dept- 
ford,  was  once  sent  for  to  a  girl  who  had  been  taken  suddenly 
ill.  He  found  her  with  inflammation  of  the  brain,  and  the  only 
account  the  mother  could  give  of  it  was,  that  shortly  before,  she 
had  run  into  the  room,  crying,  "  Oh,  mother,  I  have  seen  Uncle 
John  drowned  in  his  boat  under  the  fifth  arch  of  Rochester 
bridge!"  The  girl  died  a  few  hours  afterward;  and,  on  the 
following  night,  the  uncle's  boat  ran  foul  of  the  bridge,  and  he 
was  drowned,  exactly  as  she  had  foretold. 

Mrs.  A  ,  an  English  lady,  and  the  wife  of  a  clergyman, 

relates  that,  previous  to  her  marriage,  she  with  her  father  and 
mother  being  at  the  seaside,  had  arranged  to  make  a  few  days' 
excursion  to  some  races  that  were  about  to  take  place ;  and 
that  the  night  before  they  started,  the  father  having  been  left 
alone,  while  the  ladies  were  engaged  in  their  preparations,  they 
found  him,  on  descending  to  the  drawing-room,  in  a  state  of 
considerable  agitation  —  which,  he  said,  had  arisen  from  his 
having  seen  a  dreadful  face  at  one  corner  of  the  room.  He 
described  it' as  a  bruised,  battered,  crushed,  discolored  face,  with 
the  two  eyes  protruding  frightfully  from  their  sockets ;  but  the 
features  were  too  disfigured  to  ascertain  if  it  were  the  face  of 
any  one  he  knew.  On  the  following  day,  on  their  way  to  the 
races,  an  accident  occurred  ;  and  he  was  brought  home  with 
his  own  face  exactly  in  the  condition  he  had  described.  He 
had  never  exhibited  any  other  instance  of  this  extraordinary 
faculty,  and  the  impression  made  by  the  circumstance  lasted  the 
remainder  of  his  life,  which  was  unhappily  shortened  by  the 
injuries  he  had  received. 

The  late  Mrs.  V  ,  a  lady  of  fortune  and  family,  who 

resides  near  Loch  Lomond,  possessed  this  faculty  in  an  extra- 
ordinary degree,  and  displayed  it  on  many  remarkable  occa- 
sions.   When  her  brother  was  shipwrecked  in  the  channel,  she 


422  THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 

was  heard  to  exclaim,  "  Thank  God,  he  is  saved  !"  and  de- 
scribed the  scene  with  all  its  circumstances. 

Colonel  David  Steward,  a  determined  believer  in  what  he 
calls  the  supernatural,  in  his  book  on  the  highlanders,  relates 
the  following  fact  as  one  so  remarkable,  that  "  credulous 
minds"  may  be  excused  for  believing  it  to  have  been  pro- 
phetic. He  says  that,  late  in  an  autumnal  evening  of  the  year 
1773,  the  son  of  a  neighbor  came  to  his  father's  house,  and  soon 
after  his  arrival  inquired 'for  a  little  boy  of  the  family,  then 
about  three  years  old.  He  was  shown  up  to  the  nursery,  and 
found  the  nurse  putting  a  pair  of  new  shoes  on  the  child,  which 
she  complained  did  not  fit.  "  Never  mind,"  said  the  young 
man,  "they  will  fit  him  before  he  wants  them"  —  a  prediction 
which  not  only  offended  the  nurse,  but  seemed  at  the  moment 
absurd,  since  the  child  was  apparently  in  perfect  health.  When 
he  joined  the  party  in  the  drawing-room,  he  being  much  jeered 
upon  this  new  gift  of  second-sight,  explained  that  the  impres- 
sion he  had  received  originated  in  his  having  just  seen  a  funeral 
passing  the  wooden  bridge  which  crossed  a  stream  at  a  short 
distance  from  the  house.  Hv  first  observed  a  crowd  of  people, 
and  on  coming  nearer  he  saw  a  person  carrying  a  small  coffin, 
followed  by  about  twenty  gentlemen,  all  of  his  acquaintance, 
his  own  father  and  a  Mr.  Stewart  being  among  the  number. 
He  did  not  attempt  to  join  the  procession,  which  he  saw  turn 
off  into  the  churchyard  :  but  knowing  his  own  father  could  not 
be  actually  there,  and  that  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Stewart  were  then  at 
Blair,  he  felt  a  conviction  that  the  phenomenon  portended  the 
death  of  the  child  :  a  persuasion  which  was  verified  by  its  sud- 
denly expiring  on  the  following  night  ;  —  and  Colonel  Stewart 
adds  that  the  circumstances  and  attendants  at  the  funeral  were 
precisely  such  as  the  young  man  had  described.  He  mentions, 
also,  that  this  gentleman  was  not  a  seer ;  that  he  was  a  man  of 
education  and  general  knowledge ;  and  that  this  was  the  first 
and  only  vision  of  the  sort  he  ever  had. 

I  know  of  a  young  lady  who  has  three  times  seen  funerals  in 
this  way. 

The  old  persuasion  that  fasting  was  a  means  of  developing 


MISCELLANEOUS  PHENOMENA. 


423 


the  spirit  of  prophecy,  is  undoubtedly  well  founded,  and  the 
annals  of  medicine  furnish  numerous  facts  which  establish  it. 
A  man  condemned  to  death  at  Viterbo,  having  abstained  from 
food  in  the  hope  of  escaping  execution,  became  so  clairvoyant, 
that  he  could  tell  what  was  doing  in  any  part  of  the  prison  ;  the 
expression  used  in  the  report  is  that  he  "  saw  through  the 
walls  :"  this,  however,  could  not  be  with  his  natural  organs  of 
sight. 

It  is  worthy  of  observation,  that  idiots  often  possess  some 
gleams  of  this  faculty  of  second-sight  or  presentiment ;  and  it 
is  probably  on  this  account  that  they  are  in  some  countries  held 
sacred.  Presentiment,  which  I  think  may  very  probably  be 
merely  the  vague  and  imperfect  recollection  of  what  we  knew 
in  our  sleep,  is  often  observed  in  drunken  people. 

In  the  great  plague  at  Basle,  which  occurred  toward  the  end 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  almost  everybody  who  died  called 
out  in  their  last  moments  the"  name  of  the  person  that  was  to 
follow  them  next. 

Not  long  ago,  a  servant  girl  on  the  estate  of  D  ,  of  S  , 

saw  with  amazement  five  figures  ascending  a  perpendicular 
cliff,  quite  inaccessible  to  human  feet ;  one  was  a  boy  wearing 
a  cap  with  red  binding.  She  watched  them  with  great  curi- 
osity till  they  reached  the  top,  where  they  all  stretched  them- 
selves on  the  earth,  with  countenances  expressive  of  great  de- 
jection. While  she  was  looking  at  them  they  disappeared,  and 
she  immediately  related  her  vision.  Shortly  afterward,  a  for 
eign  ship,  in  distress,  was  seen  to  put  off  a  boat  with  four  men 
and  a  boy :  the  boat  was  dashed  to  pifices  in  the  surf,  and  the 
five  bodies,  exactly  answering  the  description  she  had  given, 
were  thrown  on  shore  at  the  foot  of  the  cliffy  which  they  had 
perhaps  climbed  in  the  spirit ! 

How  well  what  we  call  clairvoyance  was  known,  though  how 
little  understood,  at  the  period  of  the  witch  persecution,  is 
proved  by  what  Dr.  Henry  More  says  in  his  "  Antidote  against 
Atheism"  :  — 

"  We  will  now  pass  to  those  supernatural  effects  which  are 
observed  in  them  that  are  bewitched  or  possessed ;  and  such  as 


424 


THE  NIGHT- SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


foretelling  things  to  come,  telling  what  such  and  such  persons 
speak  or  do,  as  exactly  as  if  they  were  by  them,  when  the  party 
possessed  is  at  one  end  of  the  town,  and  sitting  in  a  house 
within  doors,  and  those  parties  that  act  and  confer  together  are 
without,  at  the  other  end  of  the  town ;  to  be  able  to  see  some 
and  not  others ;  to  play  at  cards  with  one  certain  person,  and 
not  to  discern  anybody  else  at  the  table  beside  him ;  to  act  and 
talk,  and  go  up  and  down,  and  tell  what  will  become  of  things, 
and  what  happens  in  those  fits  of  possession ;  and  then,  as  soon 
as  the  possessed  or  bewitched  party  is  out  of  them,  to  remem- 
ber nothing  at  all,  but  to  inquire  concerning  the  welfare  of 
those  whose  faces  they  seemed  to  look  upon  just  before,  when 
they  were  in  their  fits;"  —  a  state  which  he  believes  to  arise 
from  the  devil's  having  taken  possession  of  the  body  of  the 
magnetic  person,  which  is  precisely  the  theory  supported  by 
many  fanatical  persons  in  our  own  day.  Dr.  More  was  not  a 
fanatic  :  but  these  phenomena,  though  very  well  understood  by 
the  ancient  philosophers,  as  well  as  by  Paracelsus,  Van  Hel- 
mont,  Cornelius  Agrippa,  Jacob  Behmen,  a  Scotch  physician 
(called  Maxwell)  who  published  on  the  subject  hi  the  seven- 
teenth century,  and  many  others,  were  still,  when  observed, 
looked  upon  as  the  effects  of  diabolical  influence  by  mankind 
in  general. 

When  Monsieur  Six  Deniers,  the  artist,  was  drowned  in  the 
Seine  in  184G,  after  his  body  had  been  vainly  sought,  a  som- 
nambule  was  applied  to,  in  whose  hands  they  placed  a  portfolio 
belonging  to  him ;  and  being  asked  where  the  owner  was,  she 
evinced  great  terror,  held  up  her  dress  as  if  walking  in  the 
water,  and  said  that  he  was  between  two  boats,  under  the  Pont 
des  Arts,  with  nothing  on  but  a  flannel  waistcoat :  and  there  he 
was  found. 

A  friend  of  mine  knows  a  lady  who,  early  one  morning — 
being  in  a  natural  state  of  clairvoyance  without  magnetism  — 
saw  the  porter  of  the  house  where  her  son  lodged  ascend  to  his 
room  with  a  carving-knife,  go  to  his  bed  where  he  lay  asleep, 
lean  over  him,  then  open  a  chest,  take  out  a  fifty-pound  note, 
and  retire.    On  the  following  day,  she  went  to  her  son  and 


MISCELLANEOUS  PHENOMENA. 


425 


asked  him  if  he  had  any  money  in  the  house;  he  said,  "Yes,  1 
have  fifty  pounds  :"  whereupon  she  hade  him  seek  it,  hut  it 
was  gone.  They  stopped  payment  of  the  note;  hut  did  not 
prosecute,  thinking  the  evidence  insufficient.  Subsequently, 
the  porter  being  taken  up  for  other  crimes,  the  note  was  found 
crumpled  up  at  the  bottom  of  an  old  purse  belonging  to  him. 

Dr.Ennemoser  says  that  there  is  no  doubt  of  the  ancient  Sibyls 
having  been  clairvoyant  women,  and  that  it  is  impossible  so 
much  value  could  have  been  attached  to  their  books,  had  not 
their  revelations  been  verified. 

A  maid-servant  residing  in  a  family  in  Northumberland,  one 
day  last  winter  was  heard  to  utter  a  violent  scream  immediately 
after  she  had  left  the  kitchen.  On  following  her  to  inquire 
what  had  happened,  she  said  that  she  had  just  seen  her  father 
in  his  night-clothes,  with  a  most  horrible  countenance,  and  she 
was  sure  something  dreadful  had  happened  to  him.  Two  days 
afterward  there  arrived  a  letter,  saying  he  had  been  seized  with 
delirium  tremens,  and  was  at  the  point  of  death ;  which  ac- 
cordingly ensued. 

There  are  innumerable  cases  of  this  sort  recorded  in  various 
collections,  not  to  mention  the  much  more  numerous  ones  that 
meet  with  no  recorder ;  and  I  could  myself  mention  many  more, 
but  these  will  suffice  —  one,  however,  I  will  not  omit,  for,  though 
historical,  it  is  not  generally  known.  A  year  before  the  rebel- 
lion broke  out,  in  consequence  of  which  Lord  Kilmarnock  lost 
his  head,  the  family  were  one  day  startled  by  a  scream,  and  on 
rushing  out  to  inquire  what  had  occurred,  they  found  the  ser- 
vants all  assembled,  in  amazement,  with  the  exception  of  one 
maid,  who  they  said  had  gone  up  to  the  garrets  to  hang  some 
linen  on  the  lines  to  dry.  On  ascending  thither,  they  found  the 
girl  on  the  floor,  in  a  state  of  insensibility ;  and  they  had  no 
sooner  revived  her  than,  on  seeing  Lord  Kilmarnock  bending 
over  her,  she  screamed  and  fainted  again.  When  ultimately 
recovered,  she  told  them  that  while  hanging  up  her  linen,  and 
singing,  the  door  had  burst  open  and  his  lordship's  bloody  head 
had  rolled  in.  I  think  it  came  twice.  This  event  was  so  well 
known  at  the  time,  that  on  the  first  rumors  of  the  rebellion, 


426 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


Lord  Saltoun  said,  "  Kilmarnock  will  lose  his  head."  It  was 
answered,  "that  Kilmarnock  had  not  joined  the  rebels."  "He 
will,  and  will  be  beheaded,"  returned  Lord  Saltoun. 

Now,  in  these  cases  we  are  almost  compelled  to  believe  that 
the  phenomenon  is  purely  subjective,  and  there  is  no  veritable 
outstanding  object  seen ;  yet,  when  we  have  taken  refuge  in 
this  hypothesis,  the  difficulty  remains  as  great  as  ever ;  and  is 
to  me  much  more  incomprehensible  than  ghost-seeing,  because 
in  the  latter  we  suppose  an  external  agency  acting  in  some 
way  or  other  on  the  seer. 

I  have  already  mentioned  that  Oberlin,  the  good  pastor  of 
Ban  de  la  Roche,  himself  a  ghost-seer,  asserted  that  everything 
earthly  had  its  counterpart,  or  antitype,  in  the  other  world,  not 
only  organized,  but  unorganized  matter.  If  so,  do  we  some- 
times see  these  antitypes  ? 

Dr.  Ennemoser,  in  treating  of  second-sight — which,  by  the 
way,  is  quite  as  well  known  in  Germany,  and  especially  in 
Denmark,  as  in  the  highlands  of  Scotland  —  says,  that  as  in  nat- 
ural somnambulism  there  is  a  partial  internal  vigilance,  so  does 
the  seer  fall,  while  awake,  into  a  dream-state.  He  suddenly 
becomes  motionless  and  stiff:  his  eyes  are  open,  and  his  senses 
are,  while  the  vision  lasts,  unperceptive  of  all  external  objects ; 
the  vision  may  be  communicated  by  the  touch,  and  sometimes 
persons  at  a  distance  from  each  other,  but  connected  by  blood 
or  sympathy,  have  the  vision  simultaneously.     He  remarks, 

also,  that,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  above  case  of  Mr.  C  ,  any 

attempt  to  frustrate  the  fulfilment  of  the  vision  never  succeeds, 
inasmuch  as  the  attempt  appears  to  be  taken  into  the  account. 

The  seeing  in  glass  and  in  crystals  is  equally  inexplicable  ;  as 
is  the  magical  seeing  of  the  Egyptians.  Every  now  and  then  we 
hear  it  said  that  this  last  is  discovered  to  be  an  imposition,  be- 
cause some  traveller  has  either  actually  fallen  into  the  hands  of 
an  impostor  —  and  there  are  impostors  in  all  trades  —  or  be- 
cause the  phenomenon  was  imperfectly  exhibited  ;  a  circum- 
stance which,  as  in  the  exhibitions  of  clairvoyants  and  som- 
nambulists, where  all  the  conditions  are  not  under  command,  or 
even  recognised,  must  necessarily  happen.    But  not  to  mention 


MISCELLANEOUS  PHENOMENA. 


427 


the  accounts  published  by  Mr.  Lane  and  Lord  Prudhoe,  who- 
ever has  read  that  of  Monsieur  Leon  Laborde  must  be  satisfied 
that  the  thing  is  an  indisputable  fact.  It  is,  in  fact,  only  another 
form  of  the  seeing  in  crystals,  which  has  been  known  in  all 
ages,  and  of  which  many  modern  instances  have  occurred  among 
somnambulic  patients. 

We  see  by  the  forty-fourth  chapter  of  Genesis  that  it  was  by 
his  cup  that  Joseph  prophesied:  "Is  not  this  it  in  which  my 
lord  drinketh,  and  whereby  indeed  he  divinethl"  But,  as  Dr. 
Passavent  observes,  and  as  we  shall  presently  see,  in  the  anec- 
dote of  the  boy  and  the  gipsy,  the  virtue  does  not  lie  in  the 
glass  nor  in  the  water,  but  in  the  seer  himself,  who  may  possess 
a  more  or  less  developed  faculty.  The  external  objects  and 
ceremonies  being  only  the  means#of  concentrating  the  attention 
and  intensifying  the  power. 

Monsieur  Leon  Laborde  witnessed  the  exhibition,  at  Cairo, 
before  Lord  P  's  visit ;  the  exhibitor,  named  Achmed,  ap- 
peared to  him  a  respectable  man,  who  spoke  simply  of  his  sci- 
ence, and  had  nothing  of  the  charlatan  about  him.  The  first 
child  employed  was  a  boy  eleven  years  old,  the  son  of  a-  Euro- 
pean ;  and  Achmed  having  traced  some  figures  on  the  palm  of 
his  hand,  and  poured  ink  over  them,  bade  him  look  for  the  reflec- 
tion of  his  own  face.  The  child  said  he  saw  it ;  the  magician 
then  burnt  some  powders  in  a  brazier,  and  bade  him  tell  him 
when  he  saw  a  soldier  sweeping  a  place ;  and  while  the  fumes 
from  the  brazier  diffused  themselves,  he  pronounced  a  sort  of 
litany.  Presently  the  child  threw  back  his  head,  and  screaming 
with  terror,  sobbed  out,  while  bathed  in  tears,  that  he  had  seen 
a  dreadful  face.  Fearing  the  boy  might  be  injured,  Monsieur 
Laborde  now  called  up  a  little  Arab  servant,  who  had  never 
seen  or  heard  of  the  magician.  He  was  gay  and  laughing,  and 
not  at  all  frightened  ;  and  the  ceremony  being  repeated,  he  said 
he  saw  the  soldier  sweeping  in  the  front  of  a  tent.  He  was 
then  desired  to  bid  the  soldier  bring  Shakspere,  Colonel  Cra- 
dock,  and  several  other  persons ;  and  he  described  every  per- 
son and  thing  so  exactly  as  to  be  entirely  satisfactory.  During 
the  operations  the  boy  looked  as  if  intoxicated,  with  his  eyes 


428 


THE  NIGHT-STDE  OF  NATURE. 


fixed  and  the  perspiration  dripping  from  his  brow.  Achmed 
disenchanted  him  by  placing  his  thumbs  on  his  eyes.  He  grad- 
ually recovered,  and  gayly  related  all  he  had  seen,  which  he 
perfectly  remembered. 

Now  this  is  merely  another  form  of  what  the  Laplanders,  the 
African  magicians,  and  the  Schaamans  of  Siberia,  do  by  taking 
narcotics  and  turning  round  till  they  fall  down  in  a  state  of  in- 
sensibility, in  which  condition  they  are  clear-seers,  and  besides 
vaticinating,  describe  scenes,  places,  and  persons,  they  have 
never  seen.  In  Barbary  they  anoint  their  hands  with  a  black 
ointment,  and  then  holding  them  up  in  the  sun,  they  see  what- 
ever they  desire,  like  the  Egyptians. 

Lady  S  possesses  somewhat  of  a  singular  faculty,  natu- 
rally. By  walking  rapidly  rqjind  a  room  several  times,  till  a 
certain  degree  of  vertigo  is  produced,  she  will  name  to  you 
any  person  you  have  privately  thought  of  or  agreed  upon  with 
others.    Her  phrase  is  :  "I  see"  so  and  so. 

Monsieur  Laborde  purchased  the  secret  of  Achmed,  who 
said  he  had  learned  it  from  two  celebrated  scheicks  of  his  own 
country,  which  was  Algiers.  Monsieur  L.  found  it  connected 
with  both  physics  and  magnetism,  and  practised  it  himself  after- 
ward with  perfect  success  ;  and  he  affirms,  positively,  that  under 
the  influence  of  a  particular  organization  and  certain  ceremo- 
nies, among  which  he  can  not  distinguish  which  are  indispen- 
sable and  which  are  not,  that  a  child,  without  fraud  or  collusion, 
can  see,  as  through  a  window  or  peep-hole,  people  moving,  who 
appear  and  disappear  at  their  command,  and  with  whom  they 
hold  communication  —  and  they  remember  everything  after  the 
operation.  He  says  :  "  I  narrate,  but  explain  nothing ;  I  pro- 
duced those  effects,  but  can  not  comprehend  them  ;  I  only  affirm 
in  the  most  positive  manner  that  what  I  relate  is  true.  I  per- 
formed the  experiment  in  various  places,  with  various  subjects, 
before  numerous  witnesses,  in  my  own  room  or  other  rooms, 
in  the  open  air,  and  even  in  a  boat  on  the  Nile.  The  exacti- 
tude and  detailed  descriptions  of  persons,  places,  and  scenes, 
could  by  no  possibility  be  feigned." 

Moreover,  Baron  Dupotet  has  very  lately  succeeded  in  ob- 


MISCELLANEOUS  PHENOMENA. 


420 


taining  these  phenomena  in  Paris,  from  persons  not  somnam- 
bulic selected  from  his  audience,  —  the  chief  difference  being 
that  they  did  not  recollect  what  they  had  seen  when  the  crisis 
was  over. 

Cagliostro,  though  a  charlatan,  was  possessed  of  this  secret, 
and  it  was  his  great  success  in  it  that  chiefly  sustained  his  repu- 
tation ;  the  spectators,  convinced  he  could  make  children  see 
distant  places  and  persons  in  glass,  were  persuaded  he  could 
do  other  things,  which  appeared  to  them  no  more  mysterious. 
Dr.  Dee  was  perfectly  honest  with  regard  to  his  mirror,  in 
which  he  could  see  by  concentrating  his  mind  on  itj  but,  as  he 
could  not  remember  what  he  saw,  he  employed  Kelly  to  see  for 
him,  while  he  himself  wrote  down  the  revelations :  and  Kelly 
was  a  rogue,  and  deceived  and  ruined  him. 

A  friend  of  Pfeffel's  knew  a  boy,  apprenticed  to  an  apothe- 
cary at  Schoppenweyer,  who,  having  been  observed  to  amuse 
himself  by  looking  into  vials  filled  with  water,  was  asked  what 
ne  saw ;  when  it  was  discovered  that  he  possessed  this  faculty 
of  seeing  in  glass,  which  was  afterward  very  frequently  exhib- 
ited for  the  satisfaction  of  the  curious.  Pfcffel  also  mentions 
another  boy  who  had  this  faculty,  and  who  went  about  the 
country  with  a  small  mirror,  answering  questions,  recovering 
stolen  goods,  &c.  He  said  that  he  one  day  fell  in  with  some 
gipsies,  one  of  whom  was  sitting  apart  and  staring  into  this 
glass.  The  boy,  from  curiosity,  looked  over  his  shoulder  and 
exclaimed  that  he  saw  "  a  fine  man  who  was  moving  about 
whereupon  the  gipsy,  having  interrogated  him,  gave  him  the 
glass  ;  "  for,"  said  he,  "  I  have  been  staring  in  it  long  enough, 
and  can  see  nothing  but  my  own  face." 

It  is  almost  unnecessary  to  observe  that  the  sacred  books  of 
the  Jews  and  of  the  Indians  testify  to  their  acquaintance  with 
this  mode  of  divination,  as  well  as  many  others. 

Many  persons  will  have  heard  or  read  an  account  of  Mr.  Can- 
ning and  Mr.  Huskisson  having  seen,  while  in  Paris,  the  vision- 
ary representation  of  their  own  deaths  in  water,  as  exhibited 
to  them  by  a  Russian  or  Polish  lady  there :  as  I  do  not,  how- 
ever, know  what  authority  there  is  for  this  story,  I  will  not 


430 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


insist  on  it  here.  But  St.  Simon  relates  a  very  curious  circum- 
stance of  this  nature,  which  occurred  at  Paris,  and  was  related 
to  him  by  the  duke  of  Orleans,  afterward  regent.  The  latter 
said  that  he  had  sent  on  the  preceding  evening  for  a  man,  then 
in  Paris,  who  pretended  to  exhibit  whatever  was  desired  in  a 
glass  of  water.  He  came,  and  a  child  of  seven  years  old,  be- 
longing to  the  house,  being  called  up,  they  bade  her  tell  what 
she  saw  doing  in  certain  places.  She  did ;  and  as  they  sent  to 
these  places  and  found  her  report  correct,  they  bade  her  next 
describe  under  what  circumstances  the  king  would  die,  with- 
out,  however,  asking  when  the  death  would  take  place. 

The  child  knew  none  of  the  court,  and  had  never  been  at 
Versailles;  yet  she  described  everything  exactly — the  room, 
bed,  furniture,  and  the  king  himself,  Madame  de  Maintenon, 
Fagon,  the  physician,  the  princes  and  princesses  —  everybody, 
in  short,  including  a  child,  wearing  an  order,  in  the  arms  of  a 
lady  whom  she  recognised  as  having  seen ;  this  was  Madame 
de  Ventadour. 

It  was  remarkable  that  she  omitted  the  dukes  de  Bourgogne 
and  Berry,  and  Monseigneur,  and  also  the  duchess  de  Bour- 
gogne. Orleans  insisted  they  must  be  there,  describing  them ; 
but  she  always  said  "  No."  These  persons  were  then  all  well, 
but  they  died  before  the  king.  She  also  saw  the  children  of 
the  prince  and  princess  of  Conti,  but  not  themselves  — which 
was  correct,  as  they  also  died  shortly  after  this  occurrence. 

Orleans  then  wished  to  see  his  own  destiny ;  and  the  man 
said,  if  he  would  not  be  frightened  he  could  show  it  to  him,  as 
if  painted  on  the  wall ;  and  after  fifteen  minutes  of  conjuration, 
the  duke  appeared,  of  the  natural  size,  dressed  as  usual,  but 
with  a  couronne  fermee  or  closed  crown  on  his  head,  which  they 
could  not  comprehend,  as  it  wa^s  not  that  of  any  country  they 
knew  of.  It  covered  his  head,  had  only  four  circles,  and  noth- 
ing at  the  top.  They  had  never  seen  such  a  one.  When  he 
became  regent,  they  understood  that  that  was  the  interpreta- 
tion of  the  prediction. 

In  connection  with  this  subject,  the  aversion  to  glass  fre* 
quently  manifested  by  dogs  is  well  worthy  of  observation. 


MISCELLANEOUS  PHENOMENA. 


431 


When  facts  of  this  kind  are  found  to  he  recorded  or  believed 
in,  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  from  the  beginning  of  it  up  to  the 
present  time,  it  is  surely  vain  for  the  so-called  savants  to  deny 
them;  and,  as  Cicero  justly  says  in  describing  the  different 
kinds  of  magic,  "  What  we  have  to  do  with  is  the  facts,  since 
of  the  cause  we  know  little.  Neither,"  he  adds,  "  are  we  to 
repudiate  these  phenomena,  because  we  sometimes  find  them 
imperfect,  or  even  false,  any  more  than  we  are  to  distrust  that 
the  human  eye  sees,  although  some  do  this  very  imperfectly,  or 
not  at  all." 

We  are  part  spirit  and  part  matter :  by  the  former  we  are 
allied  to  the  spiritual  world  and  to  the  absolute  spirit ;  and  as 
nobody  doubts *that  the  latter  can  work  magically,  that  is,  by 
the  mere  act  of  will  —  for  by  the  mere  act  of  will  all  things 
were  created,  and  by  its  constant  exertion  all  things  are  sus- 
tained—  why  should  we  be  astonished  that  we,  who  partake  of 
the  Divine  nature  and  were  created  after  God's  own  image, 
should  also,  within  certain  limits,  partake  of  this  magical  power'? 
That  this  power  has  been  frequently  abused,  is  the  fault  of 
those  who,  being  capable,  refuse  to  investigate,  and  deny  the 
existence  of  these  and  similar  phenomena;  and,  by  thus  casting 
them  out  of  the  region  of  legitimate  science,  leave  them  to  be- 
come the  prey  of  the  ignorant  and  designing. 

Dr.  Ennemoser,  in  his  very  learned  work  on  magic,  shows 
us  that  all  the  phenomena  of  magnetism  and  somnambulism, 
and  all  the  various  kinds  of  divination,  have  been  known  and 
practised  in  every  country  under  the  sun  ;  and  have  been  inti- 
mately connected  with,  and  indeed  may  be  traced  up  to  the 
fountain-head  of  every  religion. 

What  are  the  limits  of  these  powers  possessed  by  us  while  in 
the  flesh — how  far  they  may  be  developed  —  and  whether,  at 
the  extreme  verge  of  what  we  can  effect,  we  begin  to  be  aided 
by  God  or  by  spirits  of  other  spheres  of  existence  bordering  on 
ours  —  we  know  not ;  but,  with  respect  to  the  morality  of  these 
practices,  it  suffices  that  what  is  good  in  act  or  intention,  must 
come  of  good  ;  and  what  is  evil  in  act  or  intention,  must  come 
of  evil :  which  is  true  now,  as  it  was  in  the  time  of  Moses  and 


432 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


the  prophets,  when  miracles  and  magic  were  used  for  purpose? 
holy  and  unholy,  and  were  to  be  judged  accordingly.  God 
works  by  natural  laws,  of  which  we  yet  know  very  little,  and, 
in  some  departments  of  his  kingdom,  nothing;  and  whatever 
appeal  s  to  us  supernatural,  only  appears  so  from  our  ignorance  ; 
and  whatever  faculties  or  powers  he  has  endowed  us  with,  it 
must  have  been  designed  we  should  exercise  and  cultivate  for 
the  benefit  and  advancement  of  our  race  :  nor  can  I  for  one 
moment  suppose  that,  though  like  everything  else,  liable  to 
abuse,  the  legitimate  exercise  of  these  powers,  if  we  knew  their 
range,  would  be  useless,  much  less  pernicious  or  sinful. 

Of  the  magical  power  of  will,  as  I  have  said  before,  we  know 
nothing ;  and  it  does  not  belong  to  a  purely  rationalistic  age  to 
acknowledge  what  it  can  not  understand.  In  all  countries  men 
have  arisen,  here  and  there,  who  have  known  it,  and  some 
traces  of  it  have  survived  both  in  language  and  in  popular  su- 
perstitions. "  If  ye  have  faith  as  a  grain  of  mustard-seed,  ye 
shall  say  unto  this  mountain,  '  Remove  hence,'  and  it  shall  re- 
move ;  and  nothing  shall  be  impossible  to  you.  Howbeit,  this 
kind  goeth  not  out  but  by  prayer  and  fasting."  And,  veuillez 
et  croyez  —  will  and  believe  —  was  the  solution  Puysegur  gave 
of  his  magical  cures ;  and  no  doubt  the  explanation  of  those 
affected  by  royal  hands  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  they  be- 
lieved in  themselves  ;  and  having  faith,  they  could  exercise  will. 
But,  with  the  belief  in  the  divine  right  of  kings,  the  faith  and 
the  power  would  naturally  expire  together. 

With  respect  to  what  Christ  says,  in  the  above-quoted  pas- 
sage, of  fasting,  numerous  instances  are  extant,  proving  that 
clear-seeing  and  other  magical  or  spiritual  powers  are  some- 
times developed  by  it. 

Wilhelm  Krause,  a  doctor  of  philosophy  and  a  lecturer  at 
Jena,  who  died  during  the  prevalence  of  the  cholera,  cultivated 
these  powers  and  preached  them.  I  have  not  been  able  to  ob- 
tain his  works,  they  being  suppressed  as  far  as  is  practicable 
by  the  Prussian  government.  Krause  could  leave  his  body, 
and,  to  all  appearance,  die  whenever  he  pleased.  One  of  his  dis- 
ciples, yet  living,  Count  von  Eberstein,  possesses  the  same  faculty. 


MISCELLANEOUS  PHENOMENA. 


433 


Many  writers  of  the  sixteenth  century  were  well  acquainted 
with  the  power  of  will,  and  to  this  was  attributed  the  good  or 
evil  influence  of  blessings  and  curses.  They  believe  1  it  to  be 
of  great  effect  iti  curing  diseases,  and  that  by  it  alone  life  might 
be  extinguished.  That,  subjectively,  life  may  be  extinguished, 
we  have  seen  by  the  cases  of  Colonel  Townshend,  the  dervish 
that  was  buried,  Hermotinus,  and  others:  for  doubtless  the 
power  that  could  perform  so  much,  could,  under  an  adequate 
motive,  have  performed  more:  and  since  all  things  in  nature, 
spiritual  ami  material,  are  connected,  and  that  there  is  an  un- 
ceasing interaction  between  them,  we  being  members  of  one 
great  whole,  only  individualized  by  our  organisms,  it  is  possible 
to  conceive  that  the  power  which  can  be  exerted  on  our  own 
organism  might  be  extended  to  others:  and  since  we  can  not 
conceive  man  to  be  an  isolated  being  —  the  only  intelligence 
besides  God  —  none  above  us  and  none  below  —  but  must,  on 
the  contrary,  believe  that  there  are  numerous  grades  of  intelli- 
gences, it  seems  to  follow,  of  course,  that  we  must  stand  in  some 
kind  of  relation  to  them,  more  or  less  intimate;  nor  is  it  at  all 
surprising  that  with  some  individuals  this  relation  should  be 
more  intimate  than  with  others.  Finally,  we  are  not  entitled 
to  deny  the  existence  of  this  magical  or  spiritual  power,  as  ex- 
erted by  either  incorporated  or  unincorporated  spirits,  because 
we  do  not  comprehend  how  it  can  be  exerted  ;  since,  in  spite 
of  all  the  words  that  have  been  expended  on  the  subject,  we 
are  equally  ignorant  of  the  mode  in  which  our  own  will  acts 
upon  our  own  muscles.  We  know  the  fact,  but  not  the  mode 
of  it. 

19 


434 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

CONCLUSION. 

Op  the  power  of  the  mind  over  matter,  we  have  a  rerr  arka- 
ble  example  in  the  numerous  well-authenticated  instances  of 
the  stigmata.  As  in  most  cases  this  phenomenon  has  been  con- 
nected with  a  state  of  religious  exaltation,  and  has  been  appro- 
priated by  the  Roman  church  as  a  miracle,  the  fact  has  been  in 
this  country  pretty  generally  discredited,  but  without  reason. 
Ennemoser,  Passavent,  Schubert,  and  other  eminent  German 
physiologists,  assure  us  that  not  only  is  the  fact  perfectly  estab- 
lished, as  regards  many  of  the  so-called  saints,  but  also  that 
there  have  been  indubitable  modern  instances,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  ecstaticas  of  the  Tyrol,  Catherine  Emmerich  (commonly 
called  the  Nun  of  Dulmen),  ria  Mori,  and  Domeitica  Laz- 
zari,  who  have  all  exhibited  the  stigmata. 

Catherine  Emmerich,  the  most  remarkable  of  the  three,  be- 
gan very  early  to  have  visions,  and  to  display  unusual  endow- 
ments. She  was  very  pious;  could  distinguish  the  qualities  of 
plants,  reveal  secrets  or  distant  circumstances,  and  knew  peo- 
ple's thoughts  ;  but  was,  however,  extremely  sickly,  and  exhib- 
ited a  variety  of  extraordinary  and  distressing  symptoms,  which 
terminated  in  her  death.  The  wounds  of  the  crown  of  thorns 
round  her  head,  and  those  of  the  nails  in  her  hands  and  feet, 
were  as  perfect  as  if  painted  by  an  artist,  and  they  bled  regu- 
larly on  Fridays.  There  was  also  a  double  cross  on  her  breast. 
When  the  blood  was  wiped  away,  the  marks  looked  like  the 
puncture  of  flies.  She  seldom  took  any  nourishment  but  water ; 
and,  having  been  but  a  poor  cow-keeper,  she  discoursed,  when 
in  the  ecstatic  state,  as  if  inspired. 

I  am  well  aware  that  on  reading  this,  many  persons  who  never 
saw  her,  will  say  it  was  all  imposture.    It  is  very  easy  to  say 


CONCLUSION. 


this;  but  it  is  as  absurd  as  presumptuous  to  pronounce  on  what 
they  have  had  no  opportunity  of  observing.  I  never  saw  those 
women  either;  but  I  find  myself  much  more  disposed  to  rcc<  p( 
the  evidence  of  those  who  did,  than  of  those  who  only  "do  n.»t 
believe,  because  they  do  not  believe." 

Neither  Catherine  Emmerich  nor  the  others  mnde  their  suf- 
ferings a  source  of  profit,  nor  had  they  any  desire  to  be  exhib- 
ited—  but  quite  the  contrary.  She  could  see  in  the  dark  as 
well  as  the  light,  and  frequently  worked  all  night  at  makit>g 
clothes  for  the  poor,  without  lamp  or  candle. 

There  have  been  instances  of  magnetic  patients  being  stig- 
matized in  this  manner.    Madame  B.  von  N  dreamed  one 

night  that  a  person  offered  her  a  red  and  a  white  rose,  and  that 
she  chose  the  latter.  On  awaking  she  felt  a  burning  pain  in 
her  arm,  and  by  degrees  there  arose  there  the  figure  of  a  rose 
perfect  in  form  and  color.  It  was  rather  raised  above  the  skin. 
The  mark  increased  in  intensity  till  the  eighth  day,  after  which 
it  faded  away,  and  by  the  fourteenth  was  no  longer  perceptible. 

A  letter  from  Moscow,  addressed  to  Dr.  Kerner,  in  conse- 
quence of  reading  the  account 'of  the  "  Nun  of  Dulmen,"  relates 
a  still  more  extraordinary  case.  At  the  time  of  the  French 
invasion,  a  Cossack  having  pursued  a  Frenchman  into  a  cul  dp. 
sac  —  an  alley  without  an  outlet  —  there  ensued  a  terrible  con- 
flict between  them,  in  which  the  latter  was  severely  wounded. 
A  person  who  had  taken  refuge  in  this  close  and  could  not  get 
away,  was  so  dreadfully  frightened,  that  when  he  reached  home, 
there  broke  out  on  his  body  the  very  same  wounds  that  the 
Cossack  had  inflicted  on  his  enemy  ! 

The  signatures  of  the  foetus  are  analogous  facts;  and  if  the 
mind  of  the  mother  can  thus  act  on  another  organism,  why  not 
the  minds  of  the  saints,  or  of  Catherine  Emmerich,  on  their 
own  ?  From  the  influence  of  the  mother  on  the  child,  we  have 
but  one  step  to  that  asserted  to  be  possible  between  two  organ- 
isms not  visibly  connected;  for  the  difficulty  therein  lies,  thnt 
we  do  not  see  the  link  that  connects  them,  though  doubtless  it 
exists.  Dr.  Blacklock,  who  lost  his  eyesight  at  an  early  period, 
said  that,  when  awake,  he  distinguished  persons  by  hearing  and 


436 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


feeling  them  ;  but  when  asleep,  he  had  a  distinct  impression  of 
another  sense.  He  then  seemed  to  himself  united  to  them  by 
a  kind  of  distant  contact,  which  was  effected  by  threads  passing 
from  their  bodies  to  his,  which  seems  to  be  but  a  metaphorical 
expression  of  the  fact ;  for,  whether  the  connection  be  main- 
tained by  an  all-pervading  ether,  or  be  purely  dynamic,  that  the 
intertraction  exists  between  both  organic  and  inorganic  bodies, 
is  made  evident  wherever  there  is  sufficient  excitability  to  ren- 
der the  effects  sensible. 

Till  very  lately,  the  powers  of  the  divining-rod  were  consid- 
ered a  mere  fable ;  yet,  that  this  power  exists,  though  not  in 
the  rod,  but  in  the  person  that  holds  it,  is  now  perfectly  well 
established.  Count  Tristan,  who  has  written  a  book  on  the 
subject,  says  that  about  one  in  forty  have  it,  and  that  a  complete 
course  of  experiments  has  proved  the  phenomenon  to  be  elec- 
tric. The  rod  seems  to  serve,  in  some  degree,  the  same  pur- 
pose as  the  magical  mirror  and  conjurations,  and  it  is  also  ser- 
viceable in  presenting  a  result  visible  to  the  eye  of  the  spectator. 
But  numerous  cases  are  met  with,  in  which  metals  or  water  are 
perceived  beneath  the  surface  of  the  earth,  without  the  inter- 
vention of  the  rod.  A  man,  called  Bleton,  from  Dauphiny, 
possessed  this  divining  power  in  a  remarkable  degree,  as  did 
a  Swiss  girl,  called  Katherine  Beutler.  She  was  strong  and 
healthy,  and  of  a  phlegmatic  temperament,  yet  so  susceptible 
of  these  influences  that,  without  the  rod,  she  pointed  out  and 
traced  the  course  of  water,  veins  of  metal,  coal-beds,  salt-mines, 
&c.  The  sensations  produced  were  sometimes  on  the  soles  of 
her  feet,  sometimes  on  her  tongue,  or  in  ber  stomach.  She 
never  lost  the  power  wholly,  but  it  varied  considerably  in  in- 
tensity at  different  times,  as  it  did  with  Bleton.  She  was  also 
rendered  sensible  of  the  bodily  pains  of  others,  by  laying  her 
hand  on  the  affected  part,  or  near  it ;  and  she  performed  several 
magnetic  cures. 

A  person  now  alive,  named  Dussange,  in  the  Maqonnes,  pos 
sesses  this  power.  He  is  a  simple,  honest  man,  who  can  give 
no  account  of  his  own  faculty.  The  Abbes  Chatelard  and  Pa- 
ramelle  can  also  discover  subterraneous  springs ;  but  they  say 


CONCLUSION. 


437 


it  is  effected  by  means  of  their  geological  science.  Monsieur 

D  ,  of  Cluny,  however,  found  the  faculty  of  Dussange  much 

more  to  be  relied  on.  The  Greeks  and  Romans  made  hydros- 
copy  an  art;  and  there  are  works  alluded  to  as  having  existed 
on  this  subject,  especially  one  by  Marcellus.  The  caduceus  of 
Mercury,  the  wand  of  Circe,  and  the  wands  of  the  Egyptian 
sorcerers,  show  that  the  wand  or  rod  was  always  looked  upon 
as  a  symbol  of  divination.  One  of  the  most  remarkable  instan- 
ces of  the  use  of  the  divining-rod,  is  that  of  Jacques  Ay  mar. 

On  the  5th  of  July,  1692,  a  man  and  his  wife  were  murdered 
in  a  cellar  at  Lyons,  and  their  house  was  robbed.  Having  no 
clew  whatever  to  the  criminal,  this  peasant,  who  had  the  repu- 
tation of  being  able  to  discover  murderers,  thieves,  and  stolen 
articles,  by  means  of  the  divining-rod,  was  sent  for^  from  Dau- 
pbiny.  Aymar  undertook  to  follow  the  footsteps  of  the  assas- 
sins, but  he  said  he  must  first  be  taken  into  the  cellar  where 
the  murder  was  committed.  The  procurator  royal  conducted 
him  thither;  and  they  gave  him  a  rod  out  of  the  first  wood  that 
came  to  hand.  He  walked  about  the  cellar,  but  the  rod  did  not 
move  till  he  came  to  the  spot  where  the  man  had  been  killed. 
Then  Aymar  became  agitated,  and  his  pulse  beat  as  if  he  were 
in  a  high  fever;  and  all  these  sympioms  were  augmented  when 
he  approached  the  spot  on  which  they  had  found  the  body  of  the 
woman.  From  this,  he,  of  his  own  accord,  went  into  a  sort  of 
shop  where  the  robbery  had  been  committed ;  thence  he  pro- 
ceeded into  the  street,  tracing  the  assassin,  step  by  step,  first 
to  the  court  of  the  archbishop's  palace,  then  out  of  the  city, 
and  along  the  right  side  of  the  river.  He  was  escorted  all  the 
way  by  three  persons  appointed  for  the  purpose,  who  all  testi- 
fied that  sometimes  he  detected  the  traces  of  three  accomplices, 
sometimes  only  of  two.  He  led  the  way  to  the  house  of  a  gar- 
dener, where  he  insisted  that  they  had  touched  a  table  and  one 
of  three  bottles  that  were  yet  standing  upon  it.  It  was  at  first 
denied;  but  two  children,  of  nine  or  ten  years  old,  said  that 
three  men  had  been  there,  and  had  been  served  with  wine  in 
that  bottle.  Aymar  then  traced  them  to  the  river  where  they 
had  embarked  in  a  boat ;  and,  what  is  very  extraordinary,  he 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


t l  acked  them  as  surely  on  the  water  as  on  the  land.  He  fol« 
lowed  them  wherever  they  had  gone  ashore,  went  straight  to 
the  places  they  had  lodged  at,  pointed  out  their  beds,  and  the 
very  utensils  of  every  description  that  they  had  used.  On  arri- 
ving at.  Sablon,  where  some  troops  were  encamped,  the  rod  and 
his  own  sensations  satisfied  him  that  the  assassins  were  there; 
hut  fearing  the  soldiers  would  ill  treat  him,  he  refused  to  pur- 
sue the  enterprise  further,  and  returned  to  Lyons.  He  was, 
however,  promised  protection,  and  sent  back  by  water,  with 
letters  of  recommendation.  On  reaching  Sablon,  he  said  they 
were  no  longer  there  ;  but  he  tracked  them  into  Languedoc, 
entering  every  house  they  had  stopped  at,  till  he  at  length 
reached  the  gate  of  the  prison,  in  the  town  of  Beaucaire,  where 
he  said  one#of  them  would  be  found.  They  brought  all  the 
prisoners  before  him,  amounting  to  fifteen ;  and  the  only  one 
his  rod  turned  on  was  a  little  Bossu,  or  deformed  man,  who  had 
just  been  brought  in  for  a  petty  theft.  He  then  ascertained 
that  the  two  others  had  taken  the  road  to  Nimes,  and  offered  to 
follow  them  ;  but  as  the  man  denie'd  all  knowledge  of  the  mur- 
der, and  declared  he  had  never  been  at  Lyons,  it  was  thought 
best  that  they  should  return  there ;  and  as  they  went  the  way 
they  had  come,  and  stopped  at  the  same  houses,  where  he  was 
recognised,  he  at  length  confessed  that  he  had  travelled  with 
two  men  who  had  engaged  him  to  assist  in  the  crime.  What  is 
very  remarkable,  it  was  found  necessary  that  Jacques  Aymar 
should  walk  in  front  of  the  criminal,  for  when  he  followed  him 
he  became  violently  sick.  From  Lyons  to  Beaucaire  is  forty- 
five  miles. 

As  the  confession  of  the  Bossu  confirmed  all  Aymar  had  as- 
serted, the  affair  now  created  an  immense  sensation;  and  a 
great  variety  of  experiments  were  instituted,  every  one  of 
which  proved  perfectly  satisfactory.  Moreover,  two  gentle- 
men, one  of  them  the  controller  of  the  customs,  were  discov- 
ered to  possess  this  faculty,  though  in  a  minor  degree.  They 
now  took  Aymar  back  to  Beaucaire,  that  he  might  trace  the 
other  two  criminals ;  and  he  went  straight  again  to  the  prison- 
gate,  where  he  said  that  now  another  would  be  found.    On  in- 


CONCLUSION. 


430 


quiry,  however,  it  was  discovered  that  a  man  had  been  there  to 
inquire  for  the  Bos.su,  bin  was  gone  again.  He  then  followed 
them  to  Toulon,  and  finally,  to  the  frontier  of  Spain,  which  set 
a  limit  to  further  researches.  He  was  often  so  faint  and  over- 
come with  the  effluvia,  or  whatever  it  was  that  guided  him,  that 
the  perspiration  streamed  from  his  brow,  and  they  were  obliged 
to  sprinkle  him  with  water  to  prevent  his  fainting. 

He  detected  many  robberies  in  the  same  way.  His  rod 
moved  whenever  he  passed  over  metals  or  water,  or  stolen 
goods;  but  he  found  that  he  could  distinguish  the  track  of  a 
murderer  from  all  the  rest,  by  the  horror  and  pain  he  felt.  He* 
made  this  discovery  accidentally,  as  he  was  searching  for  water. 
They  dug  up  the  ground,  and  found  the  body  of  a  woman  that 
had  been  strangled. 

I  have  myself  met  with  three  or  four  persons  in  whose  hands 
the  rod  turned  visibly;  and  there  are  numerous  very  remarka- 
ble cases  recorded  in  different  works.  In  the  Hartz,  there  is  a 
race  of  people  who  support  themselves  entirely  by  this  sort  of 
divination  ;  and  as  they  are  paid  very  highly,  and  do  nothing 
else,  they  are  generally  extremely  worthless  and  dissipated. 

The  extraordinary  susceptibility  to  atmospheric  changes  in 
certain  organisms,  and  the  faculty  by  which  a  dog  tracks  the 
foot  of  his  master,  are  analogous  facts  to  those  of  the  divining- 
rod.  Mr.  Boyle  mentions  a  lady  who  always  perceived  if  a 
person  that  visited  her  came  from  a  place  where  snow  had 
latelv  fallen.  I  have  seen  one  who,  if  a  quantity  of  gloves  are 
given  her,  can  tell  to  a  certainty  to  whom  each  belongs  ;  and  a 
particular  friend  of  my  own,  on  entering  a  room,  can  distinguish 
perfectly  who  has  been  sitting  in  it,  provided  these  be  persons 
he  is  familiarly  acquainted  with.  Numerous  extraordinary  sto- 
ries are  extant  respecting  this  kind  of  faculty  in  dogs. 

Doubtless  not  only  our  bodies,  but  all  matter,  sheds  its  atmo- 
sphere around  it;  the  sterility  of  the  ground  where  metals  are 
found  is  notorious ;  and  it  is  asserted  that,  to  some  persons,  the 
vapors  that  emanate  from  below  are  visible,  and  that,  as  the 
heio-ht  of  the  mountains  round  a  lake  furnishes  a  measure  of  its 

o 

depth,  so  does  the  height  to  which  these  vapors  ascend  show 


440 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


how  far  below  the  surface  the  mineral  treasures  or  the  waters 
lie.  The  effect  of  meials  on  somnambulic  persons  is  well  known 
to  all  who  have  paid  any  attention  to  these  subjects ;  and  surely 
m;iy  be  admitted,  when  it  is  remembered  that  Humboldt  has 
discovered  the  same  sensibility  in  zoophytes,  where  no  traces 
of  nerves  could  be  detected  ;  and,  many  years  ago,  Frascatorius 
asserted  that  symptoms  resembling  apoplexy  were  sometimes 
induced  by  the  proximity  of  a  large  quantity  of  metal.  A  gen- 
tleman is  mentioned  who  could  not  enter  the  mint  at  Paris 
without  fainting.  In  short,  so  many  well-attested  cases  of  idio- 
syncratic sensibilities  exist,  that  we  have  no  right  to  reject  oth- 
ers because  they  appear  incomprehensible. 

Now;  we  may  not  only  easily  conceive,  but  we  know  it  to  be 
a  fact,  that  fear,  grief,  and  other  detrimental  passions,  vitiate 
the  secretions,*  and  augment  transpiration  ;  and  it  is  quite  nat- 
ural to  suppose  that,  where  a  crime  has  been  committed  which 
necessarily  aroused  a  number  of  turbulent  emotions,  exhalations 
perceptible  to  a  very  acute  sense  may  for  some  .lime  hover 
over  the  spot ;  while  the  anxiety,  the  terror,  the  haste,  in  short, 
the  general  commotion  of  system,  that  must  accompany  a  mur- 
derer in  his  flight,  is  quite  sufficient  to  account  for  his  path 
being  recognisable  by  such  an  abnormal  faculty,  "  for  the  wick- 
ed flee  when  no  man  pursueth."  We  also  know  that  a  person 
perspiring  with  open  pores  is  more  susceptible  than  another  to 
contagion ;  and  we  have  only  to  suppose  the  pores  of  Jacques 
Aymar  so  constituted  as  easily  to  imbibe  the  emanations  shed 
by  the  fugitive,  and  we  see  why  he  should  be  affected  by  the 
disagreeable  sensations  he  describes. 

The  disturbing  effect  of  odors  on  some  persons,  which  are 
quite  innoxious  to  others,  must  have  been  observed  by  everybody. 
Some  people  do  actually  almost  "  die  of  a  rose  in  aromatic 
pain."  Boyle  says  that,  in  his  time,  many  physicians  avoided 
giving  drugs  to  children,  having  found  that  external  applica- 
tions, to  be  imbibed  by  the  skin,  or  by  respiration,  were  suffi- 
*  In  the  "  Medical  Annals,"  a  case  is  recorded  of  a  yonng  lady  whose  axillary 
excretions  were  rendered  so  offensive,  hy  the  fright  and  horror  she  had  experiem-ed 
in  seeing  some  of  her  relations  assassinated  in  India,  that  she  was  unable  to  go 
into  society.  * 


CONCLUSION. 


441 


cient  ;  and  the  homeopaths  Occasionally  u*e  the  same  means 

now.    Sir  Charles  Bell  told  me  that  Mr.  F  .  a  gentleman 

well  known  in  public  life,  had  only  to  hold  an  old  book  to  hi« 
nose  to  produce  all  the  effects  of  a  cathartic.  Elizabeth  Okey 
was  oppressed  with  most  painful  sensations  when  Dear  a  person 
whose  frame  was  sinking.  Whenever  this  effect  was  of  ;t  cer- 
tain intensity,  Dr.  Elliotson  observed  that  the  patient  invarinblv 
died. 

Herein  lies  the  secret  of  amulets  and  talismans,  which  q^rew 
to  be  a  vain  superstition,  but  in  which,  as  in  all  popular  beliefs, 
there  was  a  germ  of  truth.  Somnambulic  persons  frequently 
prescribe  them;  and  absurd  as  it  may  seem  to  many,  there  are 
instances  in  which  their  efficacy  has  been  perfectly  established, 
be  the  interpretation  of  the  mystery  what  it  may.  In  a  great 
plague  which  occurred  in  Moravia,  a  physician,  who  was  con- 
stantly among  the  sufferers,  attributed  the  complete  immunity 
of  himself  and  his  family  to  their  wearing  amulets  composed  of 
the  powder  of  toads,  "which,"  says  Boyle,  "caused  an  emana- 
tion adverse  to  the  contagion."  A  Dutch  physician  mentions, 
that  in  the  plague  at  Nimeguen,  the  pest  seldom  attacked  any 
house  till  they  had  used  soap  in  washing  their  linen.  Wherever 
this  was  done  it  appeared  immediately. 

In  short,  we  are  the  subjects,  and  so  is  everything  around  us, 
of  all  manner  of  subtle  and  inexplicable  influences  :  and  if  our 
ancestors  attached  too  much  importance  to  these  ill-nnderstood 
arcana  of  the  night-side  of  nature,  we  have  attached  too  little. 
The  sympathetic  effects  of  multitudes  upon  each  other,  of  the 
young  sleeping  with  the  old,  of  magnetism  on  plants  and  ani- 
mals, are  now  acknowledged  facts:  may  not  many  other  as- 
serted phenomena  that  we  yet  laugh  at  be  facts  also,  though 
probably  too  capricious  in  their  nature  —  by  which  I  mean,  de- 
pending on  laws  beyond  our  apprehension  —  to  be  very  availa- 
ble ?  For  I  take  it,  that  as  there  is  no  such  thing  as  chance, 
but  all  would  be  certainty  if  we  knew  the  whole  of  the  condi- 
tions, so  no  phenomena  are  really  capricious  and  uncertain  : 
they  only  appear  so  to  our  ignorance  and  shortsightedness. 

The  strong  belief  that  formerly  prevailed  in  the  efficacy  of 

19* 


442 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


sympathetic  cures,  can  scarcely  have  existed,  I  think,  without 
some  foundation  :  nor  [ire  they  a  whit  more  extraordinary  than 
the  sympathetic  falling  of  pictures  and  stopping  of  clocks  and 
watches,  of  which  such  numerous  well-attested  cases  are  extant 
that  several  learned  German  physiologists  of  the  present  day 
pronounce  the  thing  indisputable.  I  have  myself  heard  of  some 
very  perplexing  instances. 

GafFarillus  alludes  to  a  certain  sort  of  magnet,  not  resembling 
iron,  but  of  a  black-and-white  color,  with  which  if  a  needle  or 
knife  were  rubbed,  the  body  might  be  punctured  or  cut  without 
pain.  How  can  we  know  that  this  is  not  true?  Jugglers  who 
slashed  and  cauterized  their  bodies  for  the  amusement  of  the 
public  were  supposed  to  avail  themselves  of  such  secrets. 

How  is  it  possible  for  us,  either,  to  imagine  that  the  numer- 
ous recorded  cases  of  the  Blood  Ordeal,  which  consisted  in  the 
suspected  assassin  touching  the  body  of  his  victim,  can  have 
been  either  pure  fictions  or  coincidences  ?  Not  very  long  ago, 
an  experiment  of  a  frightful  nature  is  said  to  have  been  tried 
in  France  on  a  somnambulic  person,  by  placing  on  the  epigas- 
tric region  a  vial  filled  with  the  arterial  blood  of  a  criminal  just 
guillotined.  The  effect  asserted  to  have  been  produced  was 
the  establishment  of  a  rapport  between  the  somnambule  and 
the  deceased  which  endangered  the  life  of  the  former. 

Franz  von  Baader  suggests  the  hypothesis  of  a  vis  sanguinis 
ultra  mortem,  and  supposes  that  a  rapport  or  communio  vital 
may  be  established  between  the  murderer  and  his  victim  ;  and 
he  conceives  the  idea  of  this  mutual  relation  to  be  the  true  in- 
terpretation of  the  sacrificial  rites  common  to  all  countries,  as 
also  of  the  Blutschuld,  or  the  requiring  blood  for  blood. 

With  regard  to  the  blood  ordeal,  the  following  are  the  two 
latest  instances  of  it  recorded  to  have  taken  place  in  this  coun- 
try ;  they  are  extracted  from  "  Hargrave's  State  Trials:"  — 

"  Evidence  having  been  given  with  respect  to  the  death  of 
Jane  Norkott,  an  ancient  and  grave  person,  minister  of  the  par-, 
ish  in  Hertfordshire  where  the  murder  took  place,  being  sworn, 
deposed,  that  the  body  being  taken  up  out  of  the  grave,  and  the 
four  defendants  being  present,  were  required,  each  of  them,  to 


CONCLUSION. 


413 


touch  the  dead  body.  Okeman's  wife  fell  upon  her  knees,  and 
prayed  God  to  show  token  of  her  innocency.  The  appellant 
did  touch  the  body,  whereupon  the  brow  of  the  deceased,  which 
was  before  of  a  livid  and  carrion  color,  began  to  have  a  dew, 
or  gentle  sweat  on  it,  which  increased  by  degrees  till  the  sweat 
ran  down  in  drops  on  the  face,  the  brow  turned  to  a  lively  and 
fresh  color,  and  the  deceased  opened  one  of  her  eyes  and  shut 
it  again,  and  this  opening  the  eye  was  done  three  several  times  ; 
she  likewise  thrust  out  the  ring,  or  marriage  finder,  three  times, 
and  pulled  it  in  again,  and  blood  dropped  from  the  finger  on  the 
grass. 

"  Sir  Nicholas  Hyde,  the  chief  justice,  seeming  to  doubt  this 
evidence,  he  asked  the  witness  who  saw  these  things  besides 
him,  to  which  he,  the  witness,  answered,  1  My  lord,  I  can  not 
swear  what  others  saw,  but  I  do  believe  the  whole  company 
saw  it ;  and  if  it  had  been  thought  a  doubt,  proof  would  have 
been  made,  and  many  would  have  attested  with  me.  My  lord,' 
added  the  witness,  observing  the  surprise  his  evidence  awa- 
kened, 'I  am  minister  of  the  parish,  and  have  long  known  all 
the  parties,  but  never  had  displeasure  against  any  of  them,  nor 
they  with  me,  but  as  I  was  minister.  The  thing  was  wonder- 
ful to  me,  but  I  have  not  interest  in  the  matter,  except  as  called 
on  to  testify  to  the  truth.  My  lord,  my  brother,  who  is  minis- 
ter of  the  next  parish,  is  here  present,  and,  I  am  sure,  saw  all 
that  I  have  affirmed.'  " 

Hereupon,  the  brother,  being  sworn,  he  confirmed  the  above 
evidence  in  every  particular,  and  the  first  witness  added,  that 
having  dipped  his  finger  into  what  appeared  to  be  blood,  he  felt 
satisfied  that  it  was  really  so.  It  is  to  be  observed,  that  this 
extraordinary  circumstance  must  have  occurred,  if  it.  occurred 
at  all,  when  the  body  had  been  upward  of  a  month  dead ;  for 
it  was  taken  up  in  consequence  of  various  rumors  implicating 
the  prisoners,  after  the  coroner's  jury  had  given  in  a  verdict  of 
Jclo  de  se.  On  their  first  trial,  they  were  acquitted,  but  an  ap- 
peal being  brought,  they  were  found  guilty  and  executed.  It 
was  on  this  latter  occasion  that  the  above  strange  evidence  was 
given,  which,  being  taken  down  at  the  time  by  Sir  John  May- 


444 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


nard,  then  sergeant-at-law,  stands  recorded,  as  I  have  observed, 
in  Hargrave's  edition  of"  State  Trials." 

The  above  circumstances  occurred  in  the  year  1628,  and  in 
1GSS  the  blood  ordeal  was  again  had  recourse  to  in  the  trial  of 
Sir  Philip  Stansfteld  for  parricide,  on  which  occasion  the  body 
had  also  been  buried,  but  for  a  short  time.  Certain  suspicions 
arising,  it  was  disinterred  and  examined  by  the  surgeons,  and, 
from  a  variety  of  indications,  no  doubt  remained  that  the  old 
man  had  been  murdered,  nor  that  his  son  was  guilty  of  his  death. 
When  the  body  had  been  washed  and  arrayed  in  clean  linen, 
the  nearest  relations  and  friends  were  desired  to  lift  it  and 
replace  it  in  the  coffin  ;  and  when  Sir  Philip  placed  his  hand 
under  it,  he  suddenly  drew  it  back,  stained  with  blood,  exclaim- 
ing, "  Oh,  God  !"  and  letting  the  body  fall,  he  cried,  "  Lord,  have 
mercy  upon  me  !"  and  went  and  bowed  himself  over  a  seat  in 
the  church,  in  which  the  corpse  had  been  inspected.  Repeated 
testimonies  are  given  to  this  circumstance  in  the  course  of  the 
trial ;  and  it  is  very  remarkable  that  Sir  John  Dalrymple,  a  man 
of  strong  intellect,  and  wholly  free  from  superstition,  admits  it 
as  an  established  fact  in  his  charge  to  the  jury. 

In  short,  we  are  all,  though  in  different  degrees,  the  subjects 
of  a  variety  of  subtle  influences,  which,  more  or  less,  neutralize 
each  other,  and  many  of  which,  therefore,  we  never  observe; 
and  frequently  when  we  do  observe  the  effects,  we  have  neither 
time  nor  capacity  for  tracing  the  cause  ;  and  when  in  more  sus- 
ceptible organisms  such  effects  are  manifested,  we  content  our- 
selves with  referring  the  phenomena  to  disease  or  imposture. 
The  exemption,  or  the  power,  whichever  it  may  be,  by  which 
certain  persons  or  races  are  enabled  to  handle  venomous  ani- 
mals with  impunity,  is  a  subject  that  deserves  much  more  atten- 
tion than  it  has  met  with  ;  but  nobody  thinks  of  investigating 
secrets  that  seem  rather  curious  than  profitable  ;  besides  which, 
to  believe  these  things  implies  a  reflection  on  one's  sagacity. 
Yet,  every  now  and  then,  I  hear  of  facts  so  extraordinary, 
which  come  to  me  from  "undoubted  authority,  that  1  can  see  no 
leason  in  the  world  for  rejecting  others  that  are  not  much  more 
so.    For  example,  only  the  other  day,  Mr.  B.  C— ,  a  gentle- 


CONCLUSION. 


445 


man  well  known  in  Scotland,  who  has  lived  a  great  rleel  abroad, 
informed  me,  that  having  frequently  beard  of  the  singular  phe- 
nomenon to  be  observed  by  placing  a  scorpion  and  a  mouse 
together  under  a  glass,' he  at  length  tried  the  experiment ;  and 
the  result  perfectly  established  what  he  had  been  previously 
unable  to  believe.  Both  animals  were  evidently  frightened, but 
the  scorpion  made  the  first  attack,  and  stung  the  mouse,  which 
defended  itself  bravely,  and  killed  the  scorpion.  The  victorv, 
however,  was  not  without  its  penalties,  for  the  mouse  swelled 
to  an  unnatural  size,  and  seemed  in  danger  of  dying  from  the 
poison  of  its  defeated  antagonist,  when  it  relieved  itself  and  was 
cured  by  eating  the  scorpion,  which  was  thus  proved  to  be  an 
antidote  to  its  own  venom  ;  furnishing  a  most  interesting  and 
remarkable  instance  of  isopathy. 

There  is  a  religious  sect  in  Africa,  not  far  from  Algiers,  who 
cat  the  most  venomous  serpents  alive,  and  certainly,  it  is  said, 
without  extracting  their  fangs.  They  declare  they  enjoy  the 
privilege  from  their  founder.  The  creatures  writhe  and  strug- 
gle between  their  teeth;  but  possibly,  if  they  do  bite  them,  the 
bite  is  innocuous. 

Then,  not  to  mention  the  common  expedients  of  extracting 
the  poisonous  fangs,  or  forcing  the  animal  by  repeated  bitings 
to  exhaust  their  venom,  the  fact  seems  too  well  established  to 
be  longer  doubled,  that  there  are  persons  in  whom  the  faculty 
of  charming,  or,  in  other  words,  disarming  serpents,  is  inhe- 
rent, as  the  psylli  and  marsi  of  old,  and  the  people  mentioned 
by  Bruce,  Hassequist,  and  Lempriere,  who  were  themselves 
eye-witnes<es  of  the  facts  they  relate.  With  respect  to  the 
marsi,  it  must  be  remembered,  that  Heliogabalus  made  their 
priests  fling  venomous  serpents  into  the  circus  when  it  was  full 
of  people,  and  that  many  perished  by  the  bites  of  these  animals, 
which  the  marsi  had  handled  with  impunity.  The  modern 
charmers  told  Bruce  that  their  immunity  was  born  with  them; 
and  it  was  established  beyond  a  doubt,  during  the  French  ex- 
pedition into  Egypt,  that  these  people  go  from  house  to  house 
to  destroy  serpents,  as  men  do  rats  in  this  country.  They  de- 
clare that  some  mysterious  instinct  guides  them  to  the  animals, 


446 


THE  NIGHT -SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


which  they  immediately  seize  with  fury  and  tear  to  pieces  witli 
their  hands  and  teeih.  The  negroes  of  the  Antilles  can  smell 
a  serpent  which  they  do  not  see,  and  of  whose  presence  a 
European  is  quite  insensible;  and  Madame  Calderon  de  la 
Bare  i  mentions,  in  her  letters  from  Mexico,  some  singular  cases 
of  exemption  from  the  pernicious  effects  of  venomous  bites ; 
and  further  relates,  that  in  some  parts  of  America,  where  rattle- 
snakes are  extremely  abundant,  they  have  a  custom  of  innocu- 
lating  children  with  the  poison,  and  that  this  is  a  preservative 
from  future  injury.  This  may  or  may  not  be  true;  but  it  is  so 
much  the  fashion  in  these  days  to  set  down  to  the  account  of 
fable  everything  deviating  from  our  daily  experience,  that  trav- 
ellers may  repeat  these  stories  for  ages  before  any  competent 
person  will  take  the  trouble  of  verifying  the  report.  However, 
taking  the  evidence  altogether,  it  appears  clear  that  there  does 
exist  in  some  persons  a  facuby  of  producing  in  these  animals  a 
sort  of  numbness,  or  engourdissemenl,  which  renders  them  for 
the  time  incapable  of  mischief ;  though  of  the  nature  of  the 
power  we  are  utterly  ignorant,  unless  it  be  magnetic.  The 
senses  of  animals,  although  generally  resembling  ours,  are  yet 
extremely  different  in  various  instances;  and  we  know  that 
many  of  them  have  one  faculty  or  another  exalted  to  an  inten- 
sity of  which  we  have  no  precise  conception.  Galen  asserted, 
on  the  authority  of  the  marsi  and  psylli  themselves,  that  they 
obtained  their  immunity  by  feeding  on  the  flesh  of  venomous 
animals  :  but  Pliny,  Elian,  Silius  Italicus,  and  others,  account 
for  the  privilege  by  attributing  it  to  the  use  of  some  substance 
of  a  powerful  nature,  with  which  they  rubbed  their  bodies ; 
and  most  modern  travellers  incline  to  the  same  explanation. 
But  if  this  were  the  elucidation  of  the  mystery,  I  suspect  it 
would  be  easily  detected. 

It  is  observable  that  in  all  countries  where  a  secret  of  this 
sort  exists,  there  is  always  found  some  custom  which  may  be 
looked  upon  as  either  the  cause  or  the  consequence  of  the  dis- 
covery. In  Hindostan,  for  example,  in  order  to  test  the  truth 
of  an  accusation,  the  cobra  capello  is  flung  into  a  deep  pot  of 
earth  with  a  ring;  and  if  the  supposed  criminal  succeeds  in 


CONCLUSION. 


447 


extracting  the  ring  without  being  bitten  by  the  serpent,  he  is 
accounted  innocent.  So  the  sacred  asps  in  Egypt  inflicted 
death  upon  the  wicked,  but  spared  the  good.  Dr.  Allnut  men- 
tions that  he  saw  a  negro  in  Africa  touch  the  protruded  tongue 
of  a  snake  with  the  black  matter  from  the  end  of  his  pipe,  which 
he  said  was  tobacco-oil.  The  effects  were  as  rapid  as  a  shock 
of  electricity.  The  animal  never  stirred  again,  but.  stiffened, 
and  was  as  rigid  and  hard  as  if  it  had  been  dried  in  the  sun. 

It  is  related  of  Machamut,  a  Moorish  king,  that  he  fed  on 
poisons  till  his  bite  became  fatal  and  his  saliva  venomous. 
Ccelius  Rhodiginus  mentions  the  same  thing  of  a  woman  who 
was  thus  mortal  to  all  her  lovers ;  and  Avicenna  mentions  a 
man  whose  bite  was  fatal  in  the  same  way. 

The  boy  that  was  found  in  the  forest  of  Arden,  in  1563,  and 
who  had  been  nourished  by  a  she-wolf,  made  a  great  deal  of 
money  for  a  short  time,  after  he-  was  introduced  to  civilized 
life,  by  exempting  the  flocks  and  herds  of  the  shepherds  from 
the  peril  they  nightly  ran  of  being  devoured  by  wolves.  This 
he  did  by  stroking  them  with  his  hands,  or  wetting  them  with 
his  saliva,  after  which  they  for  some  time  enjoyed  an  immunity. 
His  faculty  was  discovered  from  the  circumstance  of  the  beasts 
he  kept  never  being  attacked.  It  left  him,  however,  when  he 
was  about  fourteen,  and  the  wolves  ceased  to  distinguish  him 
from  other  human  beings. 

However,  my  readers  will,  I  think,  ere  now  have  supped  full 
with  wonders,  if  not  with  Jwrrors  —  and  it  is  time  I  should 
bring  this  book  to  a  conclusion.  If  I  have  done  no  more,  I 
trust  I  shall  at  least  have  afforded  some  amusement ;  but  1  shall 
be  better  pleased  to  learn  that  I  have  induced  any  one.  if  it  be 
but  one,  to  look  upon  life  and  death,  and  the  mysteries  that 
attach  to  both,  with  a  more  curious  and  inquiring  eye  than  they 
have  hitherto  done.  I  can  not  but  think  tfiat  it  would  be  a 
great  step  if  mankind  could  familiarize  themselves  with  the 
idea  that  they  are  spirits  incorporated  for  a  time  in  the  flesh  ; 
but  that  the  dissolution  of  the  connection  between  soul  and 
body,  though  it  changes  the  external  conditions  of  the  former, 
leaves  its  moral  state  unaltered.    What  a  man  has  made  him- 


448 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


self,  he  will  be ;  his  state  is  the  result  of  his  past  life,  and  his 
heaven  or  hell  is  in  himself..  At  death  we  enter  upon  anew 
course  of  life,  and  what  that  life  shall  be  depends  upon  our- 
selves. .  If  we  have  provided  oil  for  our  lamps,  and  fitted  our- 
selves for  a  noble  destiny  and  the  fellowship  of  the  great  and 
good  spirits  that  have  passed  away,  such  will  be  our  portion  ; 
and  if  we  have  misused  our  talent,,  and  sunk  our  souls  in  the 
sensual  pleasures  or  base  passions  of  this  world,  we  shall  carry 
our  desires  and  passions  with  us,  to  make  our  torment  in  the 
other  —  or  perhaps  be  tethered  to  the  earth  by  some  inextin- 
guishable remorse  or  disappointed  scheme,  like  those  unhappy 
spirits  I  have  been  writing  about  —  and  that  perhaps  for  hun- 
dreds of  years  ;  for,  although  they  be  evidently  freed  from 
many  of  the  laws  of  space  and  matter,  while  unable  to  leave 
the  earth,  they  are  still  the  children  of  time  and  have  not 
entered  into  eternity.  It  is  surely  absurd  to  expect  that  be- 
cause our  bodies  have  decayed  and  fallen  away,  or  been  de- 
stroyed by  an  accident,  that,  a  miracle  is  to  be  wrought  in  our 
favor,  and  that  the  miser's  love  of  gold,  or  the  profligate's  love 
of  vice,  is  to  be  immediately  extinguished,  and  be  superseded 
by  inclinations  and  tastes  better  suited  to  his  new  condition  ! 
New  circumstances  do  not  so  rapidly  engender  a  new  mind 
here,  that  we  should  hope  they  will  do  so  there  :  more  espe- 
cially as,  in  the  first  place,  we  do  not  know  what  facilities  of 
improvement  may  remain  in  us;  and  in  the  second,  since  the 
law  that  like  seeks  like  must  be  undeviating,  the  blind  will  seek 
the  blind,  and  not  those  who  could  help  them  to  light. 

I  think,  too,  that  if  people  would  learn  to  remember  that  they 
are  spirits,  and  acquire  the  habit  of  conceiving  of  themselves  as 
individuals,  apart  from  the  body,  that  they  would  not  only  be 
better  able  to  realize  this  view  of  a  future  life,  but  they  would 
also  find  it  much  Jess  difficult  to  imagine,  that,  since  they  belong 
to  the  spiritual  world  on  the  one  hand,  quite  as  much  as  they 
belong  to  the  material  world  on  the  other,  that  these  extraor- 
dinary faculties,  which  they  occasionally  see  manifested  by  cer- 
tain individuals,  or  in  certain  states,  may  possibly  be  but  faint 
rays  of  those  properties  which  are  inherent  in  spirit,  jtjiough 


CONCLUSION. 


44<« 


temporarily  obscured  by  its  connection  with  the  flesh  —  and 
designed  to  be  so,  for  the  purposes  of  this  earthly  existence. 
The  most  ancient  nations  of  the  world  knew  this,  although  we 
have  lost  sight  of  it,  as  we  learn  by  the  sacred  books  of  the 
Hebrews. 

According-  to  the  Cabbalah,  **  Mankind  are  endowed  by  na- 
ture, not  only  with  the  faculty  of  penetrating  into  the  regions 
of  the  supersensuous  and  invisible,  but  also  of  working  magi- 
cally above  and  below,  or  in  the  worlds  of  light  and  darkness. 
As  the  Eternal  fills  the  world,  sees,  and  is  not  seen,  so  does  the 
soul  (N'sckamachJ  fill  the  body,  and  sees  without  being  seen. 
The  soul  perceives  that  which  the  bodily  eye  can  not.  Some- 
times a  man  is  seized  suddenly  with  a  fear,  for  which  he  can 
not  account,  which  is  because  the  soul  descries  an  impending 
misfortune.  The  soul  possesses  also  the  power  of  working  with 
the  elementary  matter  of  the  earth,  so  as  to  annihilate  one  form 
and  produce  another.  Even  by  the  force  of  imagination,  human 
beings  can  injure  other  things ;  yea,  even  to  the  slaying  of  a 
man  !"  (The  new  platonist,  Paracelsus,  says  the  same  thing.) 
The  "  Cabbalah"  teaches  that  there  have  in  all  times  existed 
men  endowed  with  powers,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  to  work 
good  or  evil ;  for,  to  be  a  virtuoso  in  either,  requires  a  peculiar 
spiritual  vigor :  thence,  such  men  as  heroes  and  priests  in  the 
kingdom  of  Tumah  (the  kingdom  of  the  clean  and  unclean). 
"  If  a  man  therefore  sets  his  desires  on  what  is  godly,  in  pro- 
portion as  his  efforts  are  not  selfish,  but  purely  a  seeking  of 
holiness,  he  will  be  endowed,  by  the  free  grace  of  God,  with 
supernatural  faculties  ;  and  it  is  the  highest  aim  of  existence, 
that  man  should  regain  his  connection  with  his  inward,  original 
source,  and  exalt  the^material  and  earthly  into  the  spiritual." 
The  highest  degree  of  this  condition  of  light  and  spirit  is  com- 
monly called  "  the  holy  ecstasy,"  which  is  apparently  the  degree 
attained  by  the  ecstatics  of  the  Tyrol. 

I"am  very  far  from  meaning  to  imply  that  it  is  our  duty,  or 
in  any  way  desirable,  that  we  should  seek  to  bring  ourselves 
into  this  state  of  holy  ecstasy,  which  seems  to  involve  some  de- 
rangement of  the  normal  relations  between  the  soul  and  body ; 


450 


THE  NIGHT-SIDE  OF  NATURE. 


but  it  is  at  least  equally  unwise  in  us  to  laugh  at,  or  deny  it  or 
its  proximate  conditions,  where  they  really  exist.  It  appears 
perfectly  clear  that,  as  by  giving  ourselves  up  wholly  to  our 
external  and  sensuous  life,  we  dim  and  obscure  the  spirit  of 
God  that  is  in  us  —  so,  by  annihilating,  as  far  as  in  us  lies,  the 
necessities  of  the  body,  we  may  so  far  subdue  the  flesh  as  to 
loosen  the  bonds  of  the  spirit,  and  enable  it  to  manifest  some 
of  its  inherent  endowments.  Ascetics  and  saints  have  frequently 
done  this  voluntarily  ;  and  disease,  or  a  peculiar  constitution, 
sometimes  does  this  for  us  involuntarily  :  and  it  is  far  from  desi- 
rable that  we  should  seek  to  produce  such  a  state  by  either 
means,  but  it  is  extremely  desirable  that  we  should  avail  our- 
selves of  the  instruction  to  be  gained  by  the  simple  knowledge 
thai  such  phenomena  have  existed  and  been  observed  in  all 
ages;  and  that  thereby  our  connection  with  the  spiritual  world 
may  become  a  demonstrated  fact  to  all  who  choose  to  open  their 
eyes  to  it. 

With  regard  to  the  cases  of  apparitions  I  have  adduced,  they 
are  not,  as  I  said  before,  one  hundredth  part  of  those  I  could 
have  brought  forward,  had  I  resorted  to  a  few  of  the  numerous 
printed  collections  that  exist  in  all  languages. 

Whether  the  view  I  acknowledge  myself  to  take  of  the  facts 
be  or  not  the  correct  one  —  whether  we  are  to  look  to  the  re- 
gion of  the  psychical  or  the  hyperphysical  for  the  explanation 
—  the  facts  themselves  are  certainly  well  worthy  of  observa- 
tion ;  the  more  so,  as  it  will  be  seen  that,  although  ghosts  are 
often  said  to  be  out  of  fashion,  such  occurrences  are,  in  reality, 
as  rife  as  ever:  while,  if  these  shadowy  forms  be  actually  vis- 
iters from  the  dead,  I  think  we  can  not  too  soon  lend  an  attentive 
ear  to  the  tale  their  reappearance  tells  us. 

That  we  do  not  all  see  them,  or  that  those  who  promise  to 
come  do  not  all  keep  tryst,  amounts  to  nothing.  We  do  not 
know  why  they  can  come,  nor  why  they  can  not;  and  as  for 
not  seeing  them,  I  repeat,  we  must  not  forget  how  many  other 
things  there  are  that  we  do  not  see :  and  since,  in  science,  we 
know  that  there  are  delicate  manifestations  which  can  only  be 
rendered  perceptible  to  our  organs  by  the  application  of  the 


CONCLUSION. 


451 


most  delicate  electrometers,  is  it  not  rensonable  to  suppose  that 
there  mny  exist  certain  susceptible  or  diseased  organisms,  which, 
judiciously  handled,  may  serve  as  electrometers  to  the  healthy 
ones  1 

As  my  book  is  designed  as  an  inquiry,  with  a  note  of  inter- 
rogation I  characteristically  bid  adieu  to  my  readers. 

c.  c. 


TUB  KND, 


» 


